


Sea Songs

by missmungoe



Series: Shanties for the Weary Voyager [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: ('retirement' is a loosely applied term), 3D2Y (One Piece), Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Fluff, Healing, Loving Marriage, Miscarriage, Parenthood, Pirate King Monkey D. Luffy, Pirate!Makino, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Retired Pirates, Romance, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 96,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8491117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: The world has its long-awaited King, but there’s an island where an Emperor still reigns; a sovereignty of retired pirates that answer to no one else, and a peace left undisturbed—at least if you know what's good for you. There's a bar there, the seat of an Empress of gentle things, of homely comforts and good liquor, no crown on her head but her authority an undisputed fact.Sequel to Siren's Call. It’s the end of a voyage, but not the end of their story—not by a long shot. There are many verses still left to sing, sweet and bitter, of the love that endured a long decade and then some; of the marriage that came of it, and the partnership that didn’t flinch at war and separation and distance. And lastly, of the new life it made, conceived in the sun-warmed surf at the junction between two worlds that had once been separate.





	1. first verse

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Heed the Siren's Call](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6428275). Set a few months after Marineford, during the time-skip (or rather, during the two-year jump between Siren's Call chapters 18 and 19), and after.
> 
> Snippets at the very beginning and end of the fic are from Florence + the Machine's _Wish That You Were Here_.

and now I'm reaching out with every note I sing / and I hope it gets to you on some pacific wind  
 wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear—

tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here. 

 

* * *

 

The sun slanting through the window was what woke him, a gentler morning than he was used to, coming awake in his bunk to feel the sway and tilt of his ship beneath him. This was a kinder awakening, even with an unfamiliar bed, and the muscles in his back reminding him cheerfully that he’s inching close to forty.

It took him a moment to adjust, and to piece together a semblance of understanding from the small slips of information presented to him. First, the pale shaft of sunlight draped across the floorboards. Then, the distinct lack of noise; no feet running across the deck, the planks groaning softly under the onslaught; the ship feeling the past few years as keenly as her captain.

And then at last, the tiny shape pressed against his chest, fast asleep.

It was still a feat wrapping his head around it fully, the fact that he’d made it back—that she’d welcomed his return as though it hadn’t been years but weeks. When he’d caught sight of her on the wharf he almost hadn’t dared hope, but then she’d broken into a run, and the girl might be long gone but the woman left in her wake had thrown herself into his embrace with none of the reservations she’d had once.

Ten years had changed things — had changed them both, but when they'd come together it was to discover they still fit. Her insecurities weren't as bright, and her heart not nearly as young as it had been, back when he’d first turned up in her bar and her life. Back then she’d looked at the world of pirates like those in her books; as little more than fiction. Lives for others to live, on seas far away from hers. Shanks had never held it against her; had never wanted her to know that life as intimately as he did, even as part of him had longed to share the burden — for her to _know_ , and still look at him the same way.

He hadn’t dared, back then. But ten years was a long time, and he’d wasted enough of it existing in a world without her.

And so he’d told her everything — every truth he’d once hinted at but never told in full, and every story behind every scar. He’d told her his bounty, down to the very last berri, and every rumour the tides carried with his name. He’d told her of the war, and the aftermath; the rubble and the graves, and the still-healing wounds. And when he was done, Makino had fitted herself against him and said _okay._

And maybe she wouldn’t have, ten years ago. Maybe it would have been too much, to know what he knew, and to know him for all he was. But now she did, and she still hadn’t looked at him differently; had seen past the scars, and even the smiles he'd carried with him off the gangway. And she’d kissed him like she’d used to, with the full weight of her honest affections; had wound her small hands through his hair and pressed herself so close it had been like the day of their departure, except there’d been no hint of sadness in any of her gestures, and she’d seemed intent on reclaiming him instead; every breath and every stretch of skin available.

And he’d so thoroughly forgotten what it was like to be loved by her, the feeling had rendered him completely speechless.

She’d laughed—had asked him teasingly if he was _nervous_ , but her eyes had seen, and when she’d tilted her head to kiss him, he’d gathered his wits enough to respond. And even though it had almost been too much, having suddenly all of her after ten years with nothing but a memory, it had also been the first time he’d felt truly at peace since he’d left her.

Shanks watched her now, still asleep. The bed was more than big enough for two, but she took up far less space than he did, and he’d forgotten how _small_ she was, gaze sketching the elegant curve of a tiny, freckled shoulder, and the pert nose tucked to his sternum. Her hair was an endearing tangle, longer than when he'd seen her last, and he wound it through his fingers now, the texture soft and familiar. And she still slept like he remembered, quietly and moving little, her breaths heavy, honest things.

The touch of his fingertips along the curving shell of her ear made her stir, and the hum that pulled from low in her throat had something in his chest constricting, a surge of feeling that made it suddenly hard to breathe. And as he watched her come awake, dark eyes blinking blearily into the sunlight, he’d never been so sure of himself as he was in that moment, which, with his reputation for staggering over-confidence, was really saying something.

And so, “Marry me,” Shanks said, before Makino had even opened her eyes.

He felt her go still, but her sharp inhalation told him she’d heard him, and then she was pulling back to look at him, features still drawn with sleep but her eyes bright and fully alert.

For a whole, magnificently long beat, a sliver of doubt crept in — a reminder that he’d only just come back yesterday, and even if it had been ten years and he didn’t want to waste so much as an hour, she might not feel the same way.

Then a grin split her face, a staggeringly familiar thing; exasperated, and yet achingly fond.

“What?” Shanks asked, a soft chuckle tinged with far too much hope.

“Of course you’d ask like this,” Makino said, loosening a sigh. “I figured it’d have to be this, or something completely over the top.” A dark brow arched to accompany the words, and her eyes twinkled. “I’d actually counted on the last one.”

“I can do over the top," he told her, the beginnings of a challenge colouring the words with a quick grin.

“Please don’t.”

“You sure? I’d make it pretty spectacular.”

“Ben would do most of the work, then?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She laughed, her voice a lovely, sleep-tinged trill. “Then for his sake, you’re probably better off keeping it simple.”

Shanks regarded her where she’d tilted her head against his shoulder, a pleased smile stretched across her lips. It was difficult to think straight when she looked at him like that, so earnestly appreciative. And she'd never made a secret of the fact that she found him attractive, but there was something to be said for having it offered like this, her expression quietly marvelling. The years had taken their toll, but he felt none of them now as she watched him, as though she could keep at it for hours and never grow tired.

He was almost tempted to offer up another challenge, but curbed the playful impulse, another matter claiming his thoughts with more insistence, and, “You know,” he said then. “You haven’t answered.”

Makino met his gaze, unflinching. It was hard to imagine there’d been a time she’d barely been able to look him in the eye. “Technically, _Captain_ ,” she told him, enunciating the title with enough cheek to prompt a grin. “You haven’t asked.”

His hand was dark against the side of her face, large enough to cup her cheek in full, the protruding veins and the criss-crossing of scars an ugly truth alongside the smooth arch of her cheekbone. But her eyes were still smiling, even as his sword-callouses caught on her skin.

“Marry me, Makino?”

For a moment she didn’t say anything, just continued to watch him, and only when he was about to ask how long she planned on making him suffer, she hummed, “You know, spectacular or not, I still think it’s customary to get down on one knee.”

“Buck naked?” Shanks asked, brows lifting along with his shit-eating grin. "Lewd girl. Although I don't know why I'm surprised, given your fondness for guys with ripped muscles in artistically indecent poses. I'm totally game, though. Do you want me to drape my cloak over my sculpted body, or would that just be weird?"

She smacked him playfully. “ _After_ you've put your clothes on, you scoundrel.”

“But now that you’ve put the idea in my head—”

“Shanks, don’t you _dare—_ ”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t say ‘yes’ if I asked you to marry me, on my knees, completely starkers?”

“No."

“…are you saying ‘no’ to that, or to my first question?”

Her expression was a mixture of a great many things, but the most prominent of all was the smile that had stretched, wide across her face. “Yes.”

His heart felt infinitely light in his chest. “So is that a—”

“ _Yes_ ,” she laughed, fond irritation dissolving into a shriek as he tugged her close, fingers searching out familiar spots, and finding her laughter again, thick and throaty. And when he kissed her next he tasted the answer on her grinning mouth, and in the way she fit against him. As though the years had shaped them individually so they could come together now, and find no room for doubt or secrets, only a sense of _rightness_ that, after ten long years, felt earned.

 

—

 

The ceremony was a free-spirited event, few traditions upheld beyond the ritual exchange of sake cups, and his ship was filled almost beyond what she could carry, pirates and villagers in cheerful attendance, and enough food and drink between them all to feed a small fleet. The sun's descent was a languid surrender, a burnished pearl perched low on the collar of a blushing pink horizon, the sea bleeding red as evening approached, and Red Force bobbed gently in the calm waters of Fuschia Port.

She wore flowers in her hair, white petals trailing across the deck with every turn of her head, and their vows were simple, honest things. There was no undue grandeur, only an audience torn between tears and laughter, and a party that lasted until the sun rose back up the following morning.

Luffy would be disappointed to hear he’d missed it, Shanks found himself thinking, idly thumbing the metal band wrapped around his finger. He wondered how the kid was holding up. According to Rayleigh, he’d thrown himself headfirst into a new training regime. Not an uncommon way of dealing with grief, and not a surprising reaction, the kid himself taken into consideration, but the thought still sparked a pang of regret within him, wondering if he could have changed things.

The door to the galley opened, laughter spilling into the solitude of his thoughts, before it was abruptly cut off, the quiet nipping at its heels as gentle as the footsteps that approached across the main deck; small, bare feet dancing lightly over the planks.

“There you are.”

Inclining his head, it was to find his new wife, cheeks flushed prettily and a glass balanced between slender fingers. “Not much of a wedding party without the groom," Makino said.

Shanks caught the trail of petals in her wake, the braid coiled at the nape of her neck coming loose, along with the flowers she'd woven into her hair that morning. For a beat, the sight held his complete attention, before the jut of her hip stole it, and her dress, the sheer white fabric hugging her frame, clinging reverently with every step taken towards him. A trail of silk buttons marked a delicate path up the front; a modest cut, but with her feet bare and her hair coming undone, one thin strap perched at the very crest of her shoulder, as though waiting to slip down...

It took effort dragging his thoughts back, only to find her smile entirely knowing.

One brow arched in silent challenge, his smile was an effortless thing, and he let her hear the telling roughness in his voice when he quipped, “Says the now missing bride.”

Coming to stand beside him, Makino eased herself against his side, and he pressed his brow to her shoulder. He doubted he’d ever stop marvelling over the relief offered by her presence. He’d heard his own described as a tangible thing, as loud as his personality, filling up empty space wherever there was any to find and claiming it as his own. And if that was the case then hers was the direct opposite, a soothing balm, light and lovely, not claiming anything at all, but leaving its mark, regardless.

“What are you thinking?”

The murmur reached his ears, gentle as the lap of the waves against the hull. Somewhere in the galley behind them, a glass shattered, and a muffled chorus of laughter rose in its wake.

“I’m wondering,” Shanks began, worrying the words on his tongue. It was an old and private thought; he hadn’t even told Ben this. “What would have happened if I’d asked you, ten years ago.”

The slight tilt of her head begged his gaze, and he glanced down to meet her eyes, large and dark in the gathering shadows. “I would have said yes,” Makino said, after a pause. “Although I think you already knew that.”

Shanks didn’t answer. But she was right; he'd suspected as much, which was probably why he hadn’t asked when he'd had the chance. It would have been crueller to leave her, bound by wedding vows. Or at least so he’d thought. Now, though…

He allowed a self-deprecating smile to linger, just a moment too long. “Maybe I’m just getting old, reminiscing about the years we could have had.”

“Fool man,” Makino said, flicking his nose. She hadn't missed a beat, and Shanks wondered if she hadn't expected the words. “What’s done is done. You should think of the years we have ahead of us instead.”

He met her gaze. “Yeah?”

Her smile was a quick, too-clever thing. “You’re my husband now, so you’ll have to suffer accordingly,” she pointed out, matter-of-fact. “And I’ll have you know, I’ve got a long life planned for us.”

“That a promise?”

His voice was too rough for his usual good humour, and even for want, and when she wound her fingers through his, he felt the cool press of her wedding band into his palm. “That’s a _vow_.”

Shanks curved his smile around a breath dragged deep, feeling her sinking against him, her small shape veiled in white and flowers in her hair, spilling dark and loose around his fingers when he lifted his hand to drag them through it, palm cupped around the back of her neck to pull her close for a kiss.

And in that moment, one starved breath giving way for another, the lull of the empty deck wrapped around them and the muffled noises from the galley blending together in a familiar, muted cacophony, he was surprised to find it, that near-elusive feeling he’d chased for years, sitting light and easy on his heart at long last—

_—peace._

 

—

 

_“I heard you got married.”_

The gruff accusation cut through the quiet, straight to the heart of the matter, and Makino had to smile, idly thumbing her wedding ring, although Garp couldn’t see it. Dadan must have been the one to tell him, and she suspected it had been meant as a jab, as though to say 'look at your legacy, Monkey D. Garp, and weep'. She’d yet to forgive him for what had happened with Ace, and Makino wondered if she ever would in truth.

“I’m surprised you haven’t stopped by to drag me off,” she said to the snail, the words gently teasing, even as she felt the curl of nervousness in her gut. “Does that mean you approve, Garp?”

The Den Den Mushi sighed — a heavy, despondent sound that made Makino’s heart swell, because even over the line that old, almost reluctant fondness was palpable.

_“You happy, Makino?”_

Her hand stilled on the ring, and she thought he sounded tired. And she remembered then, Garp under Dadan’s fist, his knees sunk into the earth, and no fight left in him. She didn’t know what to do or say to lift that new burden, but knew that the least she owed him now was the truth.

“So much that I feel I could burst from it,” she answered, voice thick.

A pause followed, and she wondered if he would answer at all. Wherever he was now, she hoped she wasn’t adding new burdens to his shoulders with her choices.

The snail drew a shuddering breath. She heard the ragged quality of the sound, and could imagine the expression behind it.

 _“Glad to hear it,”_ Garp said then, voice rough with emotion and making no point to hide it, and she felt her lip trembling, her own tears threatening. Because even over the line and across the sea, and even with the snail's attempted mimicry of expression, she could hear the smile that sat, etched into every word and nothing at all reluctant about it.

 

—

 

“I hear Teach is calling himself an Emperor now.”

The lightly musing tone was betrayed by the surprisingly dark note that accompanied the words, but Shanks didn’t look up from the newspaper as Ben came to take a seat at the table. A lone cup of coffee sat, growing steadily colder at his elbow where Makino had put it down on her way out, along with the kiss that still lingered on his brow.

The common room was mostly quiet, being so early in the morning, but it did little to lift the weight that had come to settle on his shoulders. He felt keenly aware of the scars, etched deep into his skin. “From what I hear it’s more than just him throwing that title around," he murmured, flipping the page.

Ben exhaled, a curl of cigarette smoke rising towards the ceiling. The smell of Makino's cooking lingered on the air, mingling with the salt creeping in from the sea. “Are you going to do anything about it?”

Shanks lifted his eyes from the paper. “I don’t see that there’s anything I _can_ do at the moment.”

“He’ll push his luck,” Ben said, forging on. “He’s already claimed most of Whitebeard’s old turf. How long do you think it will be before he moves onto yours?”

The thought sat like a stone in his chest, along with that uncharacteristic surge of anger that always slinked at the heels of any mention of Blackbeard. It was an old anger, and the years had done little to dull the sharp edges. It also didn’t help that Teach’s grinning face graced the front of every other newspaper, a gleeful reminder of the things the war had brought, and that people didn’t talk about. Everyone remembered the bodies, and the ugly, broken battlefield, but no one spared much thought to the carrion birds swooping in to claim their prize before the dust had even settled on the graves, the soil still fresh from turning.

“He’s an opportunist,” Ben continued then, putting words to Shanks’ thoughts, although it was a far kinder epithet.

Shanks snorted. “The understatement of the age. Teach would sell his grandmother if he thought it might get him ahead in the world.”

The words sat between them, and he heard then, what Ben hadn’t said, even before he gave voice to the thought, “Have you considered that Makino—”

“ _No_.”

The look he got was decidedly unimpressed. “Denying it doesn’t make it any less of a possibility.” There was a new hardness in his old friend’s face that made his years stand out, frown-lines carved deep.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Ben.”

“We’ve known each other long enough for you to know when I’m insulting you,” Ben shot back. “This is a valid concern.”

A pause followed, and Ben took another drag of his cigarette. “A pawn to keep the king in check,” he continued, when Shanks hadn't spoken, sliding him a look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it.”

He didn't need to answer, knowing Ben already knew what he would say. And of course he'd considered it. Teach had exploited Ace's biggest weakness in order to catch him. That he would do the same to Shanks if he thought he’d found some form of leverage, to tip the scales of the New World in his favour—

“We should check up on things, either way,” Ben said, before Shanks had had time to fully consider the thought, and all its implications; dark, twisted things, with roots digging deep. “I know you’re still enjoying your marital bliss, but you had to know something like this was coming.”

His wedding ring sat, suddenly heavy on his finger. “Yeah,” Shanks said. It didn’t sit well with him, leaving her now, if only for a little while. And not just because he’d gotten used to waking up beside her every morning.

 _Although,_ part of him supplied, an almost sheepish thought, given his current mindset — his newfound domesticity wasn’t exactly helping matters.

“Those are very grave faces.”

It was testament to how deep they’d both been in thought that neither of them had even heard her enter. But she stood in the doorway now, her brows raised at the sight of them and her expression gently bemused.

Then, her gaze sliding to the paper on the table, Shanks saw understanding as it came to settle on her face.

“You’re leaving,” Makino said, voice entirely even, and Shanks thought it would have been easier somehow, if she’d phrased it as a question instead.

Ben rose to his feet, offering Makino a nod as he made for the doors. He told her something as he passed her—Shanks thought it sounded distinctly like _are you prepared for this?—_ but without waiting for an answer, he was gone, the bat-wing doors swinging in his wake, leaving the two of them, and the empty common room.

Makino lifted her gaze back to his, and the press of her mouth alone spoke volumes, but when she moved closer, small hands reaching for the newspaper, Shanks pushed it towards her.

“Blackbeard,” she said simply, fiddling with the corner of the paper, the ink staining her fingertips. It reminded him suddenly of her habit of dog-earing all her books.

Hearing that name on her tongue had something in him bristling, but this was a part of his world that was now also part of hers, and so when she looked at him next he only nodded. “We need to do some damage control.”

She leaned her weight against the table, angled towards him. It took effort not to pull her into his lap. “Okay,” she said simply.

He couldn’t help the smile. “ _Okay_ , she says. We’ve been married only a few weeks and I announce that we’re leaving. You know you’re allowed to be angry, right? Toss a book at my head, maybe?”

Her expression was patiently fond, although she didn't bother trying to temper the sadness in her eyes, even as she reminded him, “I didn’t marry you thinking you’d settle down and take up farming, Captain." The title seemed more for his sake than hers; a playful nickname after so many years.

It didn't quite succeed in lightening the remark, and so, “Shanks,” Makino said then, as she reached out to take his hand. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He considered her hand next to his, such a tiny thing; delicate bird-bone fingers and gently arching knuckles. But he’d felt them fisting in his hair, and curled around his wrist. He knew the strength that sat in those fine bones.

“I’m thinking,” he said, a sigh sitting low in his throat as he lifted his eyes to her face, a rueful smile stretching across his lips, “that I kind of wish I could take up farming.”

Her own smile held numerous jokes about him not being cut out for the job, but, “I take it you don’t want me to join you for this one,” Makino said instead.

And there it was — the crux of the problem, put so plainly into words. No doubt because she knew him well enough to realise he’d much rather avoid the issue than deal with it.

He sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know what the best course of action is,” he confessed, putting words to that terrible indecision that had sat in his mind ever since his return. When he’d asked her to come with him ten years ago he’d had no idea what the world would look like; hadn’t yet seen the depth of the depravity that would shape the waters of the Grand Line, and the New World. Would it be safer to leave her now, or take her with him? Was there anywhere on the sea that would be safe in the time to come?

She squeezed his fingers. He felt the metal of her wedding band where it touched his skin, and in the gesture, knew her answer. She’d made the decision for him, knowing he wouldn’t be able to make it himself.

“You’ll come back to me,” Makino said, a request or an order, it was hard to tell, but it didn't matter which it was, because his answer was the same for both, offered with a kiss to the heart of her palm, cradled in his hand.

“Always.”

 

—

 

Garp had no clue how Red-Hair had gotten hold of his private number.

_“I need to leave Fuschia for a while.”_

His voice lacked the insufferable cheek he’d come to expect, and Garp wondered if his glare transferred.

He hoped it did.

“You askin’ me to come chase you down?” He snorted, but there was no real humour in the sound. “The hell are you leaving for anyway, didn’t you just get married? Or did she finally come to her senses and send your thieving ass packing?”

A pause, heavy and laden. Then,  _“It’s Blackbeard.”_

The name had something tightly coiled clench painfully within him, an anger that seemed to sit closer to the surface every damn day. Anger at the cutthroat world of pirates, for breeding men like Blackbeard, and at the Government, for allowing them to climb the ranks of their Warlord pet project.

“You didn’t call me just to give me your itinerary,” Garp said then, the words full of sharp edges as the implication of the pirate’s silence came to settle.

There was a long pause before he answered, the Den Den Mushi staring out into nothing, before a sigh was loosed into the quiet, the line crackling.  _“He’s unpredictable.”_

Garp was about to point out that it was the pot calling the kettle black, coming from him, but reined in his response. They might both be pirates, but there was a world of differences between Red-Hair and Marshall Teach.

_“Garp, if anything happens to her—”_

He tried to ignore the sudden pang of recognition, and the memory of a dark prison cell, and Roger, awaiting his execution and wearing that damn stupid grin, like a smitten teenager.

_I’m in deep, Garp. She’s one hell of a woman._

The words felt brittle on his tongue, but he spoke them anyway, “You think I don’t have scouts on the bastard? The hell kind of marine do you take me for?”

 _The kind who’d allow his grandson to go to the gallows and not come back,_ the thought slithered in, but what Red-Hair said was, _“What about your own people?”_

“I’ll deal with my people,” Garp grumbled, and tried not to let his thoughts linger long on the fact that it was hard to keep track of how many were left to call _his_. The numbers seemed to be dwindling every day. He didn’t even know where the hell Sengoku had disappeared off to.

He thought of Dawn Island then, and the girl who remained; the only one left of the gaggle of brats he called his own who hadn’t gone out to sea. He saw the scrawny teenager crouching in the storeroom, wiping her brave tears, and the girl who’d lifted her chin and told him in no uncertain terms that she’d given her heart to a pirate.

And he saw the woman she’d become, arms spread wide and her feet planted in the ground, her chin held high as she stared down a woman twice her size, for Garp’s own sake.

“If Blackbeard so much as thinks about it,” Garp said then, searching out that long-festering fury with eager hands, and allowing himself to _feel_ it, the whole, uncompromising weight of it, like a ball of molten fire in his chest, pushing up under his skin. “I don’t care if it turns the whole goddamn world on its head—you take that bastard down. You hear me, Red-Hair?”

And he might be a charming, slippery bastard, but that there wasn’t even a whole heartbeat before Red-Hair’s response didn’t surprise Garp.

_“Aye.”_

 

—

 

He kept the ring off, just in case.

It didn’t feel right, and he caught himself rubbing the naked spot on his finger from time to time, expecting to find the band of metal wrapping around it. It was strange—he’d worn it only a few weeks, but he’d come to rely on it to a surprising extent. Now it rested against his chest, a comfortable weight on the thin chain tucked under his shirt.

 _Better to be safe than sorry_ , Makino had said, and the logic had, regrettably, been hard to deny. All it would take was someone catching sight of it, and although it had been years since he’d been front-page material, Shanks doubted the press would pass up that kind of news.

But the urge to share his happiness still sat, an odd, jittery feeling in his chest. And he really was too old for this, the newly married bliss reserved for younger people with no other cares in the world, not men nearing forty.

“So,” Shanks said, grin only a little bit ridiculous. “I got married.”

Mihawk paused with his glass raised to his lips, sharp eyes cutting sideways, and Shanks was unduly pleased to see genuine surprise flicker on that severe face, if only for the briefest of seconds.

“You went back to your barmaid,” Mihawk mused then. “I’m surprised she would have you.”

“No you’re not. I’m a _catch_.”

“Are you sure she didn’t marry you out of pity?”

Hand to his chest, his feigned hurt was betrayed by the smile he couldn’t contain. “What a thing to say to an old friend who came to share his good news!”

Mihawk arched a brow. “I hope that was not the only reason you came here.”

“Are you implying that you wouldn’t have welcomed my company if it was?”

He didn’t answer, and Shanks turned his eyes to the dark horizon. For the life of him, he couldn’t guess why the man had chosen this place to call his own, out of all the islands on the Grand Line. A cold mist clung to the shore, obscuring the land beyond it, and the looming castle that rose towards the overcast skies in the distance.

Shanks thought of Fuschia, and the endless sweep of sky and sea. Odd, how it had come to sit so close to his thoughts, although he had a feeling it had little to do with the island or the village itself. And he couldn’t help the stupid grin, thinking about the fact that somewhere across the seas there was a person who’d looked at him, all of him, and wanted what she saw — every single part.

A dignified snort—if there even was such a thing, Shanks was certain Mihawk was the only person in the world capable of making it—slipped into the quiet. “Your wife must be something else, to have managed to reduce you to an even bigger fool than before.”

“Ha! I’ll tell her you said that. She’d take it as a compliment.”

Mihawk’s smile was the barest curl of his lip. “Good, as I cannot compliment her on her choice of husband.”

“ _Ouch_. Shit, you're not pulling your punches today. So much for turning down my offer of a duel."

Ignoring the last remark, Mihawk slid him another glance. “I take it she is aware of the situation,” he said instead, and the statement would have seemed abrupt to anyone else, Shanks mused.

He considered the unease that had taken up permanent residence somewhere at the bottom of his ribcage, thinking of the world they called theirs, that would dole out punishment for nothing more than loving a pirate. And he thought of Makino, with her bottomless eyes and heart, who'd looked at that world and said _okay._

“She knows the risks,” Shanks said at length.

“There is a marked difference between being aware of the risks, and truly understanding them," Mihawk countered smoothly.

“And if the fates are kind, she’ll only ever need to know _of_ them.”

Mihawk considered him carefully. “You have thought this through," he said then, and Shanks shot him a look.

"Why do you sound so _surprised_?”

“That you need to ask that question speaks volumes of your self-awareness.”

“Hey, I am plenty self-aware, thank you very much.”

Mihawk said nothing to that, only sipped his wine, and Shanks shook his head. The reason for his visit still sat, heavy in the air, moist with mist and touched with the lingering smell of pine trees. But the Government was keeping its cards close, and Mihawk had had little to share in that regard. Although with the current state of things, Shanks suspected no news to be better than bad news.

“Well,” he said then, genuine curiosity sneaking into his voice. “Since you’re obviously not going to bring it up—what the hell happened to your _face_?”

The question was accompanied by a gesture, motioning to the vicious, blue-black bruise blooming along Mihawk’s brow. In all their years, Shanks couldn’t remember anyone getting close enough leave a nick, let alone a bruise as spectacular as this one.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost say a fleeting smile flitted across his old friend’s face. “I acquired a disciple.”

Shanks’ grin was equal parts disbelief and glee. “You got an _apprentice_?”

“Disciple.”

“Oh cut the crap, you pompous old fart—you got an apprentice! I never thought I’d live to see it.” At the glare shot his way, Shanks only laughed. “So who is this ‘disciple’, then?”

“Straw-Hat’s first mate.”

Shanks’ grin had widened to near ridiculous proportions. “The Pirate Hunter kid?” He’d seen his face in the paper, hair an even more outrageous colour than his own, and a grin that promised nothing but trouble. “How’s that working out?”

“He is—tenacious.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Shanks pointed out.

Mihawk said nothing to that, but cut him another glance, this one strangely searching, although he had a way of making people feel like they were being turned inside out. Downing the contents of his glass, he rested his arm against his knee. “And you?” he asked Shanks.

Shanks’ brows furrowed. “Me, what?”

Mihawk didn't even pause for breath. “What will be your legacy to this world?”

Shanks didn’t answer at once. He thought of the kid marine who’d stood up to Akainu, glasses askew, a hairsbreadth away from joining the casualties the war had seen pile up in Marineford by the dozens. He saw the boy wearing Roger’s hat, crumbled at his dead brother’s side.  _Legacies_. Ugly, and viciously honest things.

And he thought of that endless stretch of blue in his memory, and the sunlight spilling through the window. His wife sleeping beside him, untouched by that ugly world.

 _Yet_ , the word crept in, an even uglier truth, and he swallowed it with the bitter dregs of his drink.

“Shanks,” Mihawk said then, and the use of his actual name would have caught him off guard, if it weren't for the expression that had come to settle on his face. Around them, the waters of Kuraigana sat, quiet under the night sky as the cold mist slithered, a wedding veil of white across the dark surf. “Tell your wife to be careful.”

There was no answer necessary, and so Shanks only let the words settle, considering the weight of them, and of the ring dangling from its chain around his neck. And the silence stretched, full of unspoken implications of war and death and legacies, until the edges weren’t quite so sharp, and when he sighed next it took some of the tension in his shoulders with it. Mihawk had never been one for sugar-coating the truth, but at the same time, Shanks had never been one for undue pessimism, and it was in the silence between the two that he found an old, comfortable friendship.

And he knew that when the time came, at least he could pick his allies out of a line-up. He doubted Teach could say the same.

“So that bruise—”

“Do not push your luck.”

 

— 

 

The freezing floor of her bathroom was, for once, a dearly welcome thing.

A pitiful groan pulled free of her where she sat, half-sprawled over the toiled. The retching had finally relented, but the taste of bile still burned at the back of her throat, a keen and cheerful reminder.

She should have told him. She’d suspected, those last few days before their departure, but it had been far too early to say for certain, and she hadn’t wanted the suggestion to colour his decision of whether to leave or not. It might have been a false alarm, after all.

Of course, two months after their departure now, and there was very little doubt that she was, in fact, pregnant.

Dragging a breath through her nose, Makino pushed away from the toilet bowl, making for her bedroom. A good few hours from dawn breaking, but that seemed to matter little to the small thing growing beneath her heart, cheerfully oblivious to the early hour, and entirely uncaring that she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks.

It was the same thought that kept her awake, or that kept her company beyond the waking world, in one form or another. If something were to happen while he was gone…miscarriages weren’t uncommon during the first few weeks, she knew, and thinking of it still left a tight knot of worry in the pit of her stomach. And Makino didn’t know if she could live with herself if she’d sent him off unknowing, only for him to come back and discover that she’d—

_Don’t think about that._

She tried to keep reminding herself, except that it was increasingly hard _not_ to think about it, with every new day Shanks was gone and she woke up scrambling for the toilet.

She considered the Den Den Mushi, sleeping on her nightstand. Every day for the past two weeks since she’d had it confirmed for certain, she’d wondered if she should tell him, if not for the fact that something might happen to her, then because something might well happen to _him_. He’d never know about that little heart growing beneath her own, and the thought had her reaching for the snail, but before she could touch it her hand stopped, indecision clear in the whiteness of her knuckles, and Garp’s voice, loud and clear in her memory—

_The Government has eyes and ears everywhere, Makino. Always think twice._

She opened the small drawer instead, finding the book she knew to be there, tired gaze taking in the familiar leather and gilded edges; the engravings of sea-sirens and waves crashing against the rocks. Opening it, she locked her eyes on the small piece of folded paper shuffling slowly across the inked letters, released now from where it had been safely tucked between the heavy pages. And she rooted her certainty in the sight—that wherever he was, at least her husband was still alive and well.

But she needed to tell _someone_ , before she burst. Garp was out of the question. This soon after the news of her marriage, Makino had no way of knowing how he’d take it; if it might be too much for him to handle at once.

She’d considered telling one of Shanks' crew, having volunteered to stay behind under the pretence of healing a badly broken leg, although Makino had seen him walk just fine on more than one occasion. It was a rather poorly concealed safeguard, but she wouldn’t begrudge her husband that if it helped him sleep at night. But it still felt wrong somehow, to share the small, terrifying happiness with someone she hadn’t known all that long.

But there was someone else; someone she’d known all her life, and who might not offer advice, exactly, but who might help ease some of her burdens.

If only by telling her she was being a damn fool.

 

—

 

When she told her the news, Suzume laughed so hard Makino was afraid she really would keel over at last.

“Oh, kid. I’ve gotta say, I’m a little relieved.”

“ _Relieved_?”

“Well at least you didn’t come asking me to explain the birds and the bees. I remember we didn’t cover that part, last time.”

“I don’t—Suzume-san, I’m thirty years old!”

“Not really an excuse you can throw around with ease, Ma- _chan_.”

Despite her huff, her smile was fond, and touching her hand to her stomach, Makino traced the slight swell, barely noticeable, but still staggering in the simple truth of its existence. “I think I managed well enough without your advice in that regard, thank you.”

She got a snort for that. “Remarkable as that is,” Suzume agreed. Then, with a keen look, “You told him yet?”

“I—” She had to drop her gaze. “No.”

“ _Tch_. Idiot. What’s your plan, then? Wait for him to come back and then spring it on him?”

Makino considered her hands, and kept herself from confessing that _yes_ , that had in fact been her plan.

“I want to tell him in person,” she said then. “It’s not—” _Safe. Wise. Take your pick._ “It’s not something you tell someone over the phone."

Suzume grunted, a sound that could just as easily be agreement as the opposite, but it also held a long lifetime of fond exasperation, and even though Makino didn’t for a second doubt she knew the real reason, she was glad of the old woman when she didn’t push the matter, but instead steered the conversation toward safer waters. Although  _safer_ was probably debatable.

“Well, you can probably rest assured that if that doesn’t send Red running, I don’t think anything will!”

 

—

 

Their return was heralded by a brilliant sun, and calm waters that yielded with little resistance, as though they’d been expected, although Shanks found a gentle reprimand for his tardiness in the cold cut of the late autumn air, carried to him on the breeze.

Other than the usual murmurs, their arrival caused little fuss, although he thought he saw one too many knowing smiles tossed his way from the villagers passing by the docks, some of them pausing to observe them disembarking, as though they were waiting for something. Shanks chalked it up to village quirks; no doubt they were expecting their barmaid to come sprinting past them at any moment.

And he was nowhere near too proud to admit that he did the same, watching the path climbing from the port, but as they dropped anchor and made the usual arrangements for leaving the ship docked there was still no sign of her, although knowing Fuschia, word would have reached her already at the first sight of his sails on the horizon.

He tried to ignore the worried clench in his chest at the thought, reminding himself that she might well be busy.

“Hey, Boss?”

At the query, Shanks looked up to find Lucky grinning, before giving a nod towards the village, and when he inclined his head to follow his line of sight, he found her.

She was making her way to the wharf, but there was none of the reckless abandon from their last reunion, and he tried to ignore the twinge of disappointment at the fact, well aware that a ten-year separation and a four-month long one were two vastly different things.

But he watched as a smile graced her lips, and the disappointment fled, leaving behind a warmth in his chest and a sudden contentment that felt distinctly like four months’ worth of tension bleeding out of his shoulders.

That was when he noticed the care with which she held herself, and he wondered idly if the thin layer of frost on the grass had left the path slippery. It was certainly cold enough, and Makino was dressed warmly, a thick cream-coloured sweater pulled over her blouse.

It was only when she came fully into view that he understood the reason for her caution.

“Oh shit,” Yasopp barked a laugh from beside him. “You’ve gone and done it now, Cap.”

Shanks just stared, gaze having zeroed in on her stomach, the telling curve of which was happily unmistakable, even from a distance.

It felt distinctly like someone had yanked his footing right out from underneath him.

“Someone get Captain a chair before he keels over!” came the shout, before delighted laughter erupted across his whole crew, and it took him a second to catch his breath, and to make sure he really was still standing.

Even Ben was smiling, and when moving towards her, “My most sincere thanks,” he drawled, tossing a glance back at Shanks, “for allowing me to witness him truly speechless at least once before I die.”

Despite the tight clench of her hands in her skirt, Makino smiled. “You know I try my hardest, Ben.”

Ben just grinned, touching her shoulder before he set off towards the bar. The others offered her their congratulations as they made to follow, flocking around her where she stood, and she accepted their fawning and their questions with demure patience, allowing multiple hands to touch her belly, their delight growing louder, along with their voices as they squabbled over who was next in line, their hands bumping, before someone announced with a shout that he'd felt it moving, which only exacerbated their attentions.

The glance she cast towards him was fondly enduring, and holding her gaze, Shanks couldn't move, heels all but rooted to the docks and thoughts spinning too fast for his mind to catch up as he watched the others take their leave, until only Makino was left.

She remained where she was standing for a beat, before moving towards him. Her smile was a sheepish flash of teeth, but tinged with something he now recognised as worry. “Ah—surprise?”

It was what shook him loose of the shock, and when his gaze focused on her face he saw the nervousness that sat etched into the delicate lines, filling her eyes, and he recognised with a pang that the reason was probably him, and his reaction, which was poor by anyone's standards.

Finding his voice at last, it sounded too rough for his usual ease, but, “I’ll say,” Shanks laughed, smile widening as he took in the sight of her; the tender press of her small hands over the curve of her unmistakably pregnant stomach.

 _Pregnant_ , he thought, and felt acutely short of breath.

“I thought about calling,” Makino was saying then, the words escaping her in a rush, as though she'd been hoarding them. “But then I remembered what you said, that it might not be safe, and I wasn’t sure if—but I thought about it every day, and I don’t know if you—I mean, are _you—_ ”

His arm came around her, pulling her close with more force than was probably wise, and he heard her soft _oof!_ as she collided with him, before it dissolved into a trickle of laughter as she buried her nose in his chest, her arms lifting to wrap around him in turn.

For a moment, Shanks just held her, feeling the familiar shape of her tiny frame, and the slight difference, her stomach large and round where it pressed against his hip.

It was still an effort catching his breath, and he couldn't name everything he was feeling, holding her. Just being allowed to do it was something he still had trouble wrapping his mind around; the abrupt turns his life had taken just in the past few months were still slowly catching up with him, but she was _there,_ and happy to see him. She was his _wife_ , and now even more than that—

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” he blurted, the first words that came to mind, shaking fingers cradling the back of her head.

He felt her laughing exhale, her back sinking beneath his arm as she leaned into his body. She had her hands pressed over his spine; the way her fingers dug into his cloak betrayed her outward calm. “Must have been something right,” Makino murmured, and Shanks chuckled, the sound winded, half-believing.

Drawing back to look at her, he fixed his gaze on her stomach, the round swell of it beneath her skirt and apron seeming wholly at odds with her tiny body. He could only shake his head, and even knowing the answer, “How long?” he asked her, roughly.

Her answering smile made her eyes curve at the corners, breathtaking in a way that made it difficult deciding which part of her to look at. “Five months, give or take," Makino said. Her expression softened a bit, into something that looked like regret. "I was already a few weeks along when you left." Then, tilting her head a bit, her smile quirking, gently teasing, "My guess is it was that time on the beach, but it could be any one of them. We were, er—terribly _productive_ right after we got married." Her eyes glittered, as she murmured, "But I like to think it was that time that did it. You were so relaxed. And I was, erm, convinced to let myself go. But then you're very good at that."

She touched her stomach tenderly, her smile warm. "We made this, Shanks," she said, softly bewildered, as though it was something she was still coming to terms with.

His laughter dragged from him in a shudder, and the very real fact that _he was going to be a father_ rushed to his head, along with what felt like all the blood in his body.

Shanks wondered if he really did need to sit down.

“Are you happy?” Makino was asking then, seeking his eyes, and Shanks looked up to find her expression hopeful, although still tinged with a hint of concern.

He had enough wits left to not shake his head, even as it felt like the most appropriate answer, because how could she even imagine he would be _anything_ else? But he saw in her eyes the months that had passed while he'd been gone, and the indecision that haunted her even now that he was back.

He touched her cheek, and saw that his fingers were still shaking. “Happier than I can ever remember being,” he told her, the honest words a rough rasp of feeling; an echo of what he'd told her, that day aboard his ship with flowers in her hair. And even as he said it, it didn't feel like enough—that this kind of happiness couldn't be explained, but looking at her, he knew he didn't have to; knew she felt it, too, by the goofy-looking smile that had overtaken her whole face, which looked so startlingly like one of his, all he could do was laugh.

She reached for his hand then, tucking her small fingers around it as she brought it down, to place it over her belly. She pressed her palm over his knuckles gently, then shifted it slightly, guiding it towards her hip, her brow furrowed a bit, as though in concentration.

It took a second before he realised what she was doing, but with his next breath Shanks forgot everything else, his whole being seized as he felt it; the light flutter under his hand.

Makino glanced up, grinning. "Do you feel it?"

He couldn't find his voice to respond, utterly enraptured. All he could do was stare at their hands, and her stomach beneath, nothing even remotely articulate to offer, his happiness so fierce it hurt.

“Shanks,” Makino said then, the gentle lilt of her voice anchoring, and when he lifted his gaze back to hers, the smile on her face stole his remaining breath as she said, quietly, “Welcome home.”

The distinction felt significant; not back, but _home_. And he still had nothing to offer, nothing cheeky or earnest, just a thick, _wrought_ laugh, his hand shaking where he curved it around the bump, wanting to feel those flutters again— _needing_ it now that he knew what it felt like.

And the truth of that gentle statement had never felt as certain as it did now, the weight of her small hand over his and their unborn child beneath it, the little life whose existence he’d known about for less than an hour, but which had already irrevocably changed his own.

 

—

 

“What do you think would be a good name for a boy?”

He didn’t open his eyes, but she heard the thoughtful hum that rose from his chest, just above where her ear lay pressed over his heart. The hand in her hair didn’t still its small, languid movements; the curl of his fingers around the strands tugging gently.

“A boy?” His voice was a low rumble. She imagined he was fast on his way to sleep, although Makino was wide awake.

“Mm. I have a feeling.”

She felt him shifting, allowing her to sink further against him. Her pregnant stomach kept her from lifting her legs up like she usually would, but she wiggled until she'd found a comfortable position, Shanks' bigger frame a protective cage where he held her to him, their unborn child cradled between them.

“A son, huh?” The musing curled around her ear, tinged with warmth. She wondered what images came to his mind at the thought, and if they were anything like hers.

“I think I have an idea,” she said.

“Yeah?”

She hummed, smiling. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“See?”

“If we have a boy.”

He laughed; she felt the ghost of it over her brow, followed by a kiss. “And if we have a girl?”

She thought he sounded pleased at the prospect, and wondered if he might want a daughter to dote on; to bring trinkets from his travels, and who’d listen attentively to his tales and never call them outrageous.

“Then we’ll save it for later," she said.

She felt his smile, pressed to the crown of her head. “Planning on a gaggle of kids are you, my girl?”

The thought sat at the forefront of her mind, of small hands tugging at his cloak, his arm—a whole chorus of eager voices, competing for his attention. Too many small shapes for him to carry at once, but he’d still try.

“Just enough to keep you busy, Captain.”

His laughter rose, a soft rumble beneath her ear, and she could imagine him now, years down the line, more grey than red in his hair, and those small shapes fully grown, wandering in and out of their doors at their own leisure. A young man with his father’s too-loud laughter, and a girl, red hair bright under the sun, bringing them outrageous stories from her own travels.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

His arm tightened around her shoulders, and Makino tucked the name in her heart securely under her tongue for safekeeping, until the day came that she would speak it again, perhaps to call after a small shape hurtling towards the docks, too busy living to worry about looking at his surroundings—

 _—Ace_.

 

—

 

It was in the last, desperate grip of winter that a crack shot through the fragile latticework peace Makino had built for herself.

“Sorry, Ma-chan,” Woop Slap said, features contorted with an old and tired grief. “It was her time.”

She lost herself then, just a little — didn’t notice him leaving, too busy trying to keep herself together, and to not fall to pieces, although the sobs wracking her frame were too much to keep her standing.

And it was her mother all over again, except Makino was a grown woman now, and should have learned to deal with grief accordingly. Suzume had been old, enough so that it hadn't come as a surprise, not really. And yet for some reason Makino had always had the feeling she’d outlive them all.

That was how Shanks found her, curled in on herself on the floor of the tavern, entirely uncaring of how she appeared.

She felt him kneel down beside her, and the weight of his palm settling over her back. “I heard.”

“She would have been a bad influence,” Makino said, voice thick with tears, and her laugh brittle. “She couldn’t have been bothered to censor herself, even around a child. She never did around me, when I was growing up, but—I just—”

He held her as she wept, and didn’t ask her to pull herself together, as Suzume might have; as her mother  _would_ have. And she couldn’t really bring herself to feel sorry, because that was the fate of the dead, Makino decided, with a strange surge of stubbornness. They don’t have a say in how they're grieved.

“The old are allowed that, I’ve heard,” Shanks said, voice a low murmur against her ear. “To leave the world as they see fit.”

Makino rubbed at her eyes, and thought of the story he’d told her once, of an old man with a whole fleet of sons to call his own, who'd greeted death with a smile.

“She always did say she’d be happy to go with good-looking men around,” she said then, remembering that shameless grin. “And—they said she went quietly, in her sleep.” Perhaps a grand battle would have been better suited, at least for the woman she’d been once, but—

But for all that she’d often reminisced about her youth, Makino had never felt that Suzume had been unhappy with the quiet life she’d made for herself in Fuschia.

She felt Shanks’ smile, curving against her temple. “Lived her life to the fullest, that one.”

Makino’s laugh caught in a sob. “She really did.”

His hand cradled her elbow, and when he helped her up she followed, a sigh shaking loose of her as his palm came to rest over the curve of her stomach. The baby gave a kick — a gentle reminder that there was more than death to contend with, and Makino watched Shanks’ smile widen, forever entranced by every little thing their unborn child saw fit to do.

“I guess the rest of us can only hope to follow her example,” he said then, and when he looked at her with that boyish grin, Makino was reminded of a time when an old woman had looked her in the eye and told her to grab fate with both hands—and _firmly_.

And if he didn’t quite understand the reason why her sobs suddenly turned to helpless laughter, that didn’t really matter. Because Makino could imagine that wicked smile stretching wide in her memory, and an old, wistful sigh—

_Make sure you don’t let him go now that you’ve got ‘im, kid. Men like that don’t come around often, and sure as hell not twice!_

_No_ , _they don’t,_ she thought now, as his thumb sketched across her cheek. Beneath her ribcage, the baby gave another kick, and Shanks’ expression alighted again, delighted and ever-enthralled—

_But this man did._

 

—

 

“Here,” Dadan said one day, dropping a box on Makino’s bar.

“Dadan—what’s this?”

Dadan shrugged her shoulders. “Just some old things,” she muttered, voice gruff. “Got no one else to hand ‘em down to. Figured you might find a use for them.”

Lifting the first item out of the box, Makino’s breath caught. She knew this shirt — had sewn this shirt with her own two hands. And she recognised others as well; the orange one that Ace had liked best, and worn until it had looked ready to come apart at the seams. The one with blue and white stripes that Luffy had gotten torn so often, it was a cheerful mess of mismatched patches.

Her throat constricted. “Dadan, I can’t take these.”

But Dadan only smiled, idly thumbing a small sleeve, eyes far away. “Luffy always wanted to wear Ace’s shirts—would pitch a right fit about it. Skinny brats, both of ‘em, but Ace hit a growth spurt early. Shirts were too damn big for Luffy, but that didn’t seem to matter much.”

She looked at Makino then. “Your kid should have some hand-me-downs. Even if they’re not—” But she stopped herself, and with a sigh, “It’s just how it should be,” she finished, with a sharp, decisive nod.

It might be the mood swings helping things along, but the tears pressing against her eyes were earnest, and with her hands curled around the worn little shirt, Makino nodded. The fabric was soft from many washes and the once-bright colour faded, but there were memories in the small stitches, of laughter and mischief that deserved to live on, more than anything.

And so, “Thank you,” she said, and when Dadan’s smile curved, chasing some of the grief from her eyes, Makino knew that if anything, her child would never need to question if it had ever been _wanted_.

 

—

 

“The poor kid might get the Captain’s hair, you realise,” Yasopp said one morning, as Makino set a cup of coffee down before him. At eight months, manoeuvring about was getting difficult with the sheer size of her stomach, but at least the crew kept from pointing that out.

Other things, though, were apparently considered safe topics for debate.

The smile she slipped him was knowing, and entirely too pleased. “Oh, I’m not too worried about that. I actually think it would be nice.”

Yasopp snorted. “Don’t tell Cap that. He’d never let us live it down, with how we’ve teased him over the years.”

“There are worse things to inherit than hair, Yasopp,” Makino pointed out, palm splayed flat over her stomach. A kick against her hipbone was her answer, and her smile twisted into a grimace at the small discomfort. Rubbing softly, she pushed her breath through her nose. _Settle down, you._

“You okay?”

She waved him off. “It’s just the kicking. The baby likes to make its presence known, just in case I should somehow forget that it’s there.”

“Sounds like someone we know,” Yasopp snorted, lifting his cup to his lips. His eyes were on her stomach, but he seemed to be looking at something far away, and, “You know,” he said then, an odd smile flitting across his face. “My boy got my curls.”

“Really?” Makino tried to conjure the image from the pieces he’d given her — a lanky boy with a wide, toothy smile. Somewhere out at sea now, with the rest of the scattered Straw-Hats.

“His mother’s nose, though,” Yasopp added, his laugh a terribly soft thing. “She was so upset about that, I remember, but I always liked it.” He shook his head. “It’s weird, seeing the different parts of you come together like that, making something new. _Someone_ new.”

Makino considered him where he sat, staring into his cup. “Have you thought about what you’ll say when you see him again?”

Yasopp laughed, a keenly deprecating sound. “Every day.”

Her expression softened. “I’m sure he’ll be happy just to see you. I know for a fact that words aren’t all that important, when it comes down to it.”

Yasopp looked at her, and in the space between them sat the shared understanding of a long separation, from one who’d left, and one who’d stayed behind. And she wondered what he found in her expression, but when his smile quirked next, some of the shadows behind his eyes seemed to have lifted.

“You sure you’re up for a kid who takes after Cap, though? You know what he’s like—now imagine _two_ of him in the world.” He shook his head, but his smile betrayed him.

And Makino could only laugh, imagining just that. But one more good heart in the world, and one more person as quick to laugh as her husband, was not a thought that worried her at all.

 

—

 

He had an easygoing crew.

It’s always been the way of things, ever since he first started putting it together, fresh into his captaincy and, to be perfectly honest, eager to find people who’d appreciate a good party more than loot and fame.

Of course, the loot came later, as did the fame, and he wasn’t about to discredit the importance of either one of them. He was a pirate, after all.

But personal proclivities notwithstanding, there’d always been an air of ease around his men, wholly different men that they were. There was Ben, staggeringly calm whenever things went tits-up (which couldn’t always be said about Shanks, but that's beside the point), and too pragmatic for melodrama (which also couldn’t be said about Shanks, but again, _beside the point_ ). Lucky would find time to eat in the middle of a crisis, and the whole damn world could be ending and Yasopp would still be cracking jokes between shots. And _Doc_ —well. Doc treated his amputation and endured his painkiller-induced amorousness without tossing him overboard in the process, which said something about his patience.

The point is; it would take a lot to shake any of them, although Shanks didn’t know why he was surprised that this should be what finally did the trick.

“I say we just take him out,” Yasopp declared calmly, without even glancing up from his cards. “Blackbeard.”

“Hear,” someone said, tossing another coin into the growing pile in the middle of the table. There was a cheerful assortment of loot steadily overtaking the actual gold, as well as a pistol, a pair of glasses, and someone’s wedding ring. Not Shanks’, this time. The look Makino had given him the last time he’d tried his luck with that had been demurely warning, although not as effective as the too-cheerful comment she’d slipped him, that she might just accept whoever’s hand it ended up on.

He’d won that game, let that just be said.

“Won’t hear any complaints from me,” someone else added, to a murmur of agreement from around the table. The soft chime of another coin joining the pile lingered on the air a moment, the sound fitting itself under the din of conversation.

Considering his cards, Shanks let loose a sigh, and meant to say something, when, “I agree,” Ben interjected, stilling the words on his tongue.

“Seriously?” Shanks asked, surprised. “You’re usually the first to advocate caution.”

Glancing up from his own hand, Ben just looked at him, and calmly added his next bet to the pot. “If Marineford taught us anything, it’s that Blackbeard isn’t going to be sitting still. Being proactive might be our best shot.”

Before Shanks could protest—“I’m with Ben on this one,” Doc said, eyes on his cards, his tattoos lit with a bluish sheen from the lamp overhead. “If you’ve got the cure at hand, why prolong the illness?”

Shanks looked between them. “Not that I don’t appreciate the metaphor, but I can’t just declare war on another Emperor,” he pointed out. “We’re not prepared for the fallout.”

“And if he comes after us first?” Yasopp asked. “Better we gain the upper hand while we still can. We’ll prepare, if that’s what it takes.”

Another murmur of approval from around the table, a little louder this time, and joined by several voices from across the room. Someone stomped their foot, and an emptied tumbler hit the table with a declarative _thunk_.

“He won’t be coming after us yet,” Shanks said, voice carefully level. This was by no means a new topic of debate, but it was the first time it came up with all of them present. “He doesn’t have the means.”

“Not yet,” Ben slipped in, and Shanks cut him a look.

“Ben’s right,” Yasopp agreed. “And manpower is one thing, but from what our intel says, he’s doing pretty well where that’s concerned.”

A rumbling chorus of agreement followed the statement, pitched a little lower this time. A note of tension had entered the room, jarring the good-natured atmosphere, like a string plucked a little too sharply.

Shanks looked to Lucky, brows raised as though in a silent request for assistance, but only got a shrug in return. “Sorry, Boss. They’ve got a point.”

“And what if it’s not us he goes after?” Yasopp asked then, with a deliberate glance across the room, towards the bar.

The sudden silence ushered in with that question dropped like a weight into the once-cheerful din, and he _felt_ it now, the tension growing, twisting like a massive, shackled beast.

He didn’t let his haki slip; not with his crew, however rowdy. But the tightening of his brow held a warning that was felt, Shanks knew, as surely as their growing agitation.

“He won’t,” he said. There was a sharpness to his voice now, but somehow, it didn’t sound as certain as he would have liked it to.

“You don’t know that,” Yasopp countered. “If it was my wife and kid—”

“Well it’s _not_.”

He’d raised his voice, Shanks realised, but Yasopp only crossed his arms. “I’m just _saying_ _—_ ”

“Yeah, and I’m saying we’re not doing it yet!”

The anger shoved up his throat without thinking, spat out in the shape of a command, edges cut sharp with a sudden, almost startled defiance. Because it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about this — that it wasn’t what had been keeping him awake at night for weeks, Makino sleeping, alive and breathing and the baby moving under his hand. The safest he could keep them, which wasn’t much, and their frustration wasn’t anything new.

It wasn’t like he didn’t realise that they were treading a fine balance with Teach, but acting too soon would be as disastrous as waiting too long, and he knew in his _gut_ _—_ felt it with every fibre of his being that it wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t cowardice or indecision, it was just something he _knew_. This might not be a game of cards, but it was still a game, and he couldn’t just gamble blindly. Not when he had  _everything_ to lose.

“You saw what he did to Marineford,” Yasopp was saying then, eyes raised to the room, every chair and table filled, and every corner with sound, the calm authority of its proprietor having eased itself into the tumult, comfortable with claiming her due. “Imagine what those powers would do to this place. There’d be nothing left.” Allowing the words to settle, the whole, terrible weight of them, he’d dropped his voice when he added, “Assuming he doesn’t have something else in mind.”

That now-familiar knot of anger tightened at the base of his ribs, but he kept his expression from letting it show. He wasn’t one to lose his temper, but it wasn’t Shanks’ temper Yasopp was stoking, and there was a restless tightness that sat in the hand gripping his cards, Shanks saw. For a man whose finger never wavered on the trigger, it was a keenly telling gesture.

“He wouldn’t just kill her,” Yasopp forged on. “Not your kid, either. You know as well as I do that he’d do worse than that. And he won’t show her mercy just because she’s pregnant.”

His throat had closed up, and he didn’t know if he wanted to shout or swallow the words back down, the tightness around his windpipe seeming to cut off all his air. And he was staring at his cards without seeing them, finding instead well-visited images he’d rather be without. Fuschia burning, and Makino—

“Blackbeard isn’t short-sighted,” Yasopp said. “Why the hell should we be?”

Someone raised their voice in agreement, the words bitten off with a shout. And suddenly there were more joining in, like a tightly-closed latch had been thrown open, and then it was all coming out, every voice raised that had kept quiet, remembering the battle they’d reached too late. And he knew why they were so eager to act now, nothing resembling a battlefield here, between the four walls of the bar that had always been theirs, like the gentle heart running it.

And for all that they were an easygoing crew, they were a _loud_ crew, in their merriment as in anything else, and he felt it more than heard it, like a tremor underfoot, rising up under his feet, under the ceiling, and he’d raised his own voice to shouting before he was even aware of it—

“What in the world are you doing?”

The clamour _heaved,_ before settling with a breath, like the sea after a violent surge, compelled to quiet by the gentle lilt of her voice, brightened with a startled-sounding laugh, and Shanks felt the tension that had built up in his shoulders when it suddenly let go, bleeding out under the tender touch of a small hand against his back.

“Wait—were you _fighting_?” Makino asked, seeming more amused at the prospect than genuinely concerned.

Shanks saw some of them turn their eyes away, expressions chagrined, but some of their anger remained, strung through the air, between the tables and the chairs. It sat in the white-knuckled hands gripping the playing cards until they were bent from the pressure; in the hard lines that didn’t make convincing smiles.

He watched her brows dipping, observing them. She had the palm of her other hand resting on the curve of her stomach, fiddling with the edge of her apron. Her earlier amusement was gone, he saw, replaced with worry; he found it in the slight parting of her mouth, her whole expression bared.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him then, dark eyes seeking his, and regret swelled in the wake of the realisation of how far they’d let things go.

He tried for a smile; it felt like fumbling a too-sharp knife. “Yasopp’s just upset he got a bad hand,” Shanks told her, shoving past the lingering tension even as it didn’t want to let him, before lifting his eyes to hers. “I keep telling him he can’t complain, having two.”

Her enduring expression was almost painfully affectionate, and seeming so wholly despite herself. The hand on his back traveled up, to tangle in the hair at his nape, giving it a playful tug. “I’ve played cards with you,” Makino said. “I’m not surprised things got a little heated. You can be pretty insufferable, especially if you’re winning.”

“Heated, huh?” He grinned, and was relieved when it came without effort this time. “And here you’re always giving me grief for bringing up what we do in the bedroom. I also feel I should remind you that the last time we played cards, you lost because you couldn’t stop staring at my chest.”

“You took off your shirt,” Makino pointed out, delicately sidestepping his first comment, and the open suggestion on his face. “Stripping wasn’t even part of the game.”

“And yet by the end of it, you were mysteriously missing all your clothes.”

Someone across the table choked on their drink, but despite the bright spots of colour in her cheeks, Makino just looked at him. “For that, I’m not serving you any more tonight,” she said pertly.

His pout came, as quick as his smile. “Oh, come on!”

Eyes glittering, she stuck her tongue out, her smile so quick it sparked his own without thinking, and when he laughed the knot behind his ribs came loose, allowing him to breathe.

The remaining tension lifted with the sound, escaping between the cracks in the ceiling, but then she’d always had that effect; that quietly disarming aura. And he knew it hadn’t slipped her by, and that she’d ask about it later, but for now she let them keep their small secrets, for their own sakes if nothing else.

“So much for marrying a barmaid for easier access to her stores,” Yasopp remarked, and a glance across the table found the tight grip on his cards having loosened. And it wasn’t an apology, but the slight incline of his head conveyed regret, regardless.

Shanks quirked a brow, smile wolfish. “Depends what you mean by _stores_ ,” he quipped, and caught several smiles chasing across the faces around the table, smoothing out some of the persisting hardness. Makino shook her head with a sigh.

She opened her mouth to speak, likely a comment about the alleged availability of her stores, but before she could say anything her expression contorted, pain twisting her smile into a sudden grimace. The hand in his hair fell to grip the back of his chair, a sharp breath sucked through her teeth, and he was halfway out of his seat before the sound of several chairs clattering across the floor startled the pain right off her face.

Half the people in the room were on their feet, and Makino rolled her eyes, her laughter falling with a huff.

“It’s just a cramp,” she told them, with the patience that had endured months of similar attentions. Shanks watched her smooth her palm over her stomach, pausing near her hip, her smile somewhere between fond and exasperated. “ _Stop worrying_.”

He wasn’t the only one who had a protest ready, but her hand gripped his shoulder, easing him back into his seat before he could voice it. She bent to kiss the top of his head, no room for argument left, before moving back towards the bar, a murmur slipped under her breath about _overprotective old men._

Shanks watched her go, having picked up a tray on her way, her usual grace made awkward by the size of her stomach. Several hands reached out to steal the empty glasses when she made to pile them onto the tray, only for her to bat them away, laughter softening her reproach.

The silence that lingered in her wake seemed louder than their shouting earlier.

“Shanks,” Yasopp said then, dragging his eyes back. They were all looking at him now. The game was forgotten, most of their cards scattered on the table, some of them bent in half. Ben’s fingers were twitching, a subtle but telling gesture of lingering agitation, and need of a cigarette. Lucky wasn’t eating.

No one said anything else, and he didn’t reiterate his earlier statement. They’d disagree on this, but however vocal their concerns, they’d respect his decision. They always did.

“Awaiting your orders, Boss,” was all Yasopp said, before dropping his eyes back to his hand.

Shanks only nodded, looking at his own, still seeing an entirely different game, already long in play, and thought that it would be easier if he knew which cards he’d been dealt.

 

—

 

“Shanks.”

“Mm?”

The words felt glued to the roof of her mouth. And it wasn’t like her to hesitate—not now, a married woman with a child on the way. But it was the middle of the night, and she was rarely forward at reasonable hours. And she wouldn’t have said anything, except—

Except the terrible, _aching_ want she was feeling was making it impossible to sleep, and to focus on anything but the large frame of his body sprawled out beside her, the sheets bunched up around his hips and the naked planes of his chest dark against the white sheets.

It really was unfair, being so distracting without even trying.

She traced the shape of him with her eyes; the map of scars she knew by heart and the sharp jut of his hipbones; the hard abs and the dark hairs climbing up his chest. The broad shoulders that made her feel a little dizzy, knowing their width and shape under her hands and imagining it now, touching him, the sudden need enough to steal her breath, wanting his back arching under her fingertips and his touch in return.

Yep. Entirely unfair, but she’d find time to be embarrassed later, Makino decided—to feel even the slightest thread of shame that she had apparently lost all control of her own body’s urges.

She felt him moving, the sheet slipping further down, and—oh, _that_  definitely wasn’t helping matters, and the curl of heat at her core was enough that she felt herself go hot all over.

“You’re warm,” Shanks murmured, voice questioning and still rough with sleep, and honestly, it was like he was doing it on _purpose_.

She wondered how to explain it—how to put words to the near overwhelming _need_ that had made its presence known quite out of the blue, but foregoing what would no doubt just be a fumbling mess of words on her part, Makino kissed him instead.

He laughed into her mouth, curious and delighted, and she felt his grin where it stretched along his lips. Drawing back, she found his eyes, bright now that he'd blinked the sleep from them.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she whispered, palm splayed over his sternum, her fingers fidgeting against the dark hairs there. “I’m—”

His mouth was on the juncture of her neck before she could finish, and the grin she felt curving along the skin of her throat didn’t seem to be asking for an apology. She swallowed the pleading sound that dragged from her in response, but didn't succeed in stifling it completely.

“Give me a moment,” he rumbled, speaking the words into her skin between kisses, seeking the throb of her pulse. “I’m not in my twenties anymore.”

Despite her earlier bout of embarrassment, Makino laughed, and it was a breathless mirth that was offered with her next words, “No? Could have fooled me.”

His grin was impish; she felt the shape of it, that sensual mouth that was made for smiling, and the promise punctuated by the playful nip of his teeth. “The perks of having a younger wife,” Shanks quipped, the flat of his palm large and warm between her shoulder blades, but when he flipped her it was with care, until she sank into the mattress, back protesting a bit with the weight of her stomach.

He loomed above her, hair tousled from sleep and falling into his eyes, bright and awake now and drinking in the sight of her. And there was no hesitation in her hands, seeking the broad expanse of his shoulders, familiar corded muscle and rough scar tissue. She welcomed the anticipation without reserve, observing him where he watched her, the intimate weight of his eyes that had once been so terrifying, but now she never felt safer than under that weight—and Shanks', poised over hers, always careful not to yield too much.

A kiss to the curve of her belly, just beneath the hem of her nightdress where it had ridden up her hips, and the sigh that shook loose of her felt like a relief. Then one at her hipbone followed suit, and another lower still, until she felt her breath hitching in her throat.

 _Oh, screw embarrassment_ , she thought, sinking further into the mattress, aided by the grip of his hand beneath her, tilting her hips. And when she felt his answering grin against her, her own was quick to follow, along with a little keen of contentment, yielded without shame into the quiet and prompting a ghost of satisfied laughter against the apex of her thighs.

And under that earnest worship, she marvelled silently at how far they had come, sparing a thought to the girl she’d been, who’d once worried she would never find someone who’d look at her and see something worth admiring, let alone demonstrate it so happily.

And with her husband’s very unique, very _thorough_ attention.

 

—

 

He woke before the sun to the smell of rain in the air, and the ache in his shoulder that sometimes accompanied it.

The mattress dipped under his weight as he pushed himself up, taking care not to rouse the small shape next to him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Well into her ninth month now, Makino slept poorly, but glancing over his shoulder, Shanks found her fast asleep, the sheets tangled around her legs and her belly exposed. Silvery dawnlight crept in through the window, throwing her hair in stark relief against the sheets, and did little to soften the shadows tucked along her cheeks.

Gaze shifting to her stomach, he was tempted to reach towards it, seeking the small movements that so often greeted his touch, but curbed the impulse. She was a light sleeper, for all that her current state suggested the opposite, limbs sprawled in earnest and her mouth parted with her breaths.

He was usually the one who took up most of the bed, but over the past few weeks she’d taken to sleeping on her back instead of curled on her side; one of the many small changes that had taken place since the day he’d come back to find her stomach growing with their child. There were others, too; a blossoming temper, and an appetite that had left even Lucky impressed.

And of course, there was another burgeoning appetite, one that made his smile stretch, remembering bold touches at inopportune moments, and lingering glances, the intent behind which her face couldn’t have concealed if she’d wanted to.

The ache asserted itself again, and he rubbed at his shoulder, the ridge of corded scar tissue familiar under his fingertips. Well over a decade since his amputation, but some things remained; small, phantom pains, and the jagged patch of distorted tissue that sometimes felt like it had been cinched too tight over his skin.

Letting his hand drop to his lap, Shanks took a moment to consider it, curling his fingers into his palm. He’d adapted to a surprising number of things over the years, and there were many routines that had been difficult in the beginning but that barely required a second thought. An eternal optimist's prerogative, maybe, to seek small victories over small defeats, but he'd never allowed his amputation to hold him back.

But the now-familiar worry crept in, as it had taken to doing over the course of the past four months, as Makino’s stomach got progressively bigger and the birth of their child approached with every passing day, that he had no idea how he’d adapt to _this_  — to all the things that was required of a new father. Small, inconsequential things for anyone else, like lifting and carrying. And it was one thing to adapt to having one arm as a pirate, as a swordsman and captain, but for a life as new and fragile as the one growing beneath Makino's heart...there was no room for mistakes.

He heard her come awake, as though roused by the thought of her; felt as she shifted, her movements heavy and a little awkward, before the soft hum curled into the quiet, holding his name. “Shanks?”

A kiss to the back of his neck, before a pair of slender arms came to wrap around his midsection, accompanied by the press of her stomach to his back. And the feel of it invoked a smile, despite the lingering discomfort.

Makino rested her cheek to his shoulder, and her words held an old understanding when they were offered, a quiet murmur wrapped with sleep. “The arm?”

Rubbing his fingers over the scar tissue again, he grimaced. “Yeah,” he said, letting the word loose with a sigh. “It’s not that bad. Just uncomfortable.”

He felt her soft breaths ghosting across his skin, and wondered, smiling, if she was on her way back to sleep. But then, “There’s something on your mind,” she said, and he felt the press of her palms tighten over his stomach; the light caress of her fingertips dancing across his ribcage, seeking the scars there. “Shanks, what’s the matter?”

He wasn’t surprised that she’d noticed, and felt that fierce warmth of feeling that she prompted with so little effort, even though part of him was reluctant to admit that he had concerns, and that they were obvious enough for her to pick up on. She had enough of her plate already without having to take his own worries into account, although he knew what she’d say to that if he were to tell her — could already picture the disapproving purse of that lovely mouth, and her response, that she hadn’t married him just for the good days.

“It won’t be long now,” he said then, after a lull had passed, covering her hands with his own where she’d laced them together at his front. He considered the curve of her stomach where it was pressed to his back, and the implication. _No room for mistakes._ “Having only one arm will make things difficult. Some things, at least.”

Her grip around his waist tightened, as though in response; a tender reproach. “We’ll figure it out,” she told him, and the certainty in her voice brooked no argument.

The entirely effortless mention of _we_ had a laugh shuddering out of him, but it didn’t fall with the ease he’d hoped for. “I know I joke about it—that the kid might be a handful, and that I might need a hand with things, but I’m honestly a little at a loss.”

He felt her smile, no doubt at the jokes, familiar things that they were. And he _was_ usually the one making them, but he knew she understood; that good humour aside, he did have concerns.

“It’s okay,” Makino said then. “You don’t need to have everything figured out right away. It’ll come with practise. And some things will come easier than you think.” Then, feeling the soft touch of her mouth to his skin, her smile lifting with the words, “And with the next one you won’t even think about it.”

His laugh was a startlingly genuine thing this time. “Already on the next one, huh? And here I thought you were looking forward to not being pregnant.” But despite his earlier thoughts, her surety that there would be more than one lifted something off his heart. And he was still coming to terms with his approaching fatherhood, but sitting in the morning quiet, their unborn child tucked between them, he didn’t think about the arm, only that little life that would soon be part of his, whether he was prepared for it or not.

Makino hummed her agreement, the sound a gentle tremor of amusement, and Shanks shivered. Then, her laughter soft, “It will be nice not to be woken by someone kicking my hipbone.”

He smiled. “Anything you’ll miss, you think?”

She was quiet, seeming to consider the question. “The early months,” she said then. “Right after the morning sickness passed, and the kicking was just this soft fluttering. I think I’ll miss that.”

He wished he could have been there to see it; those first, barely noticeable changes. She hadn't been certain when he'd left, and he understood her reason for waiting to tell him, but there was part of him that wished he could have been there when she'd had it confirmed.

And he knew she’d anticipated that thought, even before she spoke. “The next one,” Makino said, with that same surety again that left him a little breathless. “You’ll get to hold my hair back when I wake up in the middle of the night to throw up.”

He laughed, and tugging her fingers loose, lifted her hand to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “With pleasure.”

He felt her other hand reach up, her palm curving over the scar tissue, just beneath his shoulder where his arm stopped, the touch a desperately tender thing. She’d never shied away from touching it, or any of his scars; had only ever treated them as part of him. And he’d never told her what that meant, but Shanks had a feeling she knew, sensing it in the way her fingers lingered on the scarring around the curved stump, the caress gentle but unapologetic.

A small noise then, muffled against his shoulder, and he inclined his head to look at her, suddenly alert. “What's wrong?”

“…I need to go to the bathroom.”

He blinked. Then, mouth pursing as he fought to hold back the smile, “You can’t get off the mattress, can you?” And he knew she couldn’t see the grin, but didn’t for a second doubt that she knew it was there when he felt her fingers pinch his side, eliciting a startled laugh into their quiet bedroom.

“I’d appreciate your help more than your amusement!” she laughed, and his own was such that it was difficult dragging himself out of her embrace and off the bed.

Holding his hand out towards her, he watched her where she sat, palm pressed over her straining stomach, a fond sort of annoyance bright in her eyes and her hair a tousled mess about her shoulders. But she placed her hand in his, the other pushing against the mattress as he helped lift her off the bed, until she had her feet firmly planted on the floor.

“And lo, he’s useful for something,” Shanks quipped, as he reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “A good thing you have me at hand, hmm?”

Her smile quirked at the joke, dark eyes lifting at the corners, but her answering look was entirely honest, and when she said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Shanks didn’t for a second think that she was teasing.

 

—

 

Their son came into the world on a rainy spring evening, after twenty hours of labour and pain, which altogether amounted to the most harrowing experience of her life.

Doc had already informed her that the baby was breech, which included having to turn it, and then nearly a full day of discomfort growing steadily worse with every hour, until she’d reached the point where she wanted to beg for it to be over. She had, naively, thought the process would be _quicker_.

She was vaguely aware of the others, gathered in the bar below, where they’d been since she’d been carried upstairs, despite the fact that a whole night had come and gone and another was steadily approaching. Dadan was there, too, and Makino might have asked who was running things in her absence, but couldn't seem to dredge up the strength to voice the question out loud.

She felt Ben in the hallway outside, having stepped out an hour ago, claiming the need for a smoke, and the admission itself spoke volumes of his state of mind.

Shanks, having promptly and cheerfully refused to leave despite Doc’s repeated suggestions, to the point where he’d pulled the rarely-used captain card, was trying to be helpful.

“I’m trying to think of a joke,” he said. He was seated on the bed, supporting her back. Despite his attempted cheer, the strain in his voice was noticeable. “Something about how I love making a memorable entrance but that this tops anything I’ve ever accomplished where that’s concerned. And I put an end to a war."

Makino thought she might have laughed, but then another contraction hit, dragging a scream with it that she couldn’t stifle, even as she set her jaw, biting off the tired sob that followed.

“Doc,” Shanks said, for what felt like the hundredth time. Makino didn’t know if it was a plea or an order; didn’t know if Shanks knew. He’d exhausted his whole repertoire of terrible and inappropriate humour, leaving only exhaustion and honest helplessness.

“Not much I can do until it's time, Boss,” Doc said, without looking up; the same answer he'd given several times over, but his patience remained unshakeable.

Shanks’ fingers gripped her shoulder. Makino felt how they shook, even as his presence remained, rock steady at her back. She wondered how much effort it took.

“Pretty sure my amputation was kinder than this,” Shanks said then, with something that failed rather pathetically to be a convincing laugh. Makino leaned back against his chest, struggling to catch her breath. Closing her eyes seemed like a bad idea, the fleeting thought found her, but she couldn't help it.

Doc snorted. “You were unconscious for most of it, but I’m inclined to agree. It was quicker, anyhow.”

Shanks was quiet a moment. It felt to Makino a little too long, when he'd spent the past few hours talking almost nonstop to keep her distracted, and she meant to tell him when she heard his question, asked without his earlier cheer, something rare and serious in his voice, “Should we be worried about the blood?”

Doc said nothing, and part of her felt like she should ask what Shanks had meant, but she couldn’t seem to focus past her exhaustion.

“Makino,” Doc said then, catching her eyes where she blinked them open. She could barely see through the sweat and the tears, but she saw then what Shanks had been referring to. The sheets beneath her were bright red, and for a second it was all she could focus on (she wanted, deliriously, to ask someone to change them), before Doc said, “Looks like it’s finally time.”

She could have sobbed from the relief, but felt too tired to even manage that.

“Come on,” Doc told her, firmer now, even as she felt she couldn’t bear it another second. "You can do one more."

Part of her wanted to protest, to say she didn’t have it in her, that she’d spent everything she had, while the other—stubborn, practical even in this—just wanted it to be over.

A trembling kiss to her shoulder then, and Shanks' nose tucked against the back of her neck. “One more, my girl."

It took all the strength she had to push, and the shout it uprooted tore through her, louder than the pain, than all the other sounds in the room, until her ears were ringing from it, and she had the sudden thought that this would have to be it, because she had nothing more to give after this. This was _it_.

Then it was over, although it took a second for realisation to catch up with her, along with what was happening—Doc moving, and Shanks talking, his grip around her unyielding. At the edge of her hearing, someone was wailing.

She felt Shanks withdrawing, easing her down on the bed, the mattress sinking under her back seeming only to add to the relief, like it was welcoming her exhausted weight. Her whole body hurt, her throat the most now that the contractions had finally relented, raw from screaming, and her eyes stung from the sweat running down her temples. Her shirt was soaked through, her hair heavy and damp, and even breathing felt like an effort that required conscious thought.

She was so tired she felt like she could go to sleep between breaths, and had the sudden feeling that she'd never wanted anything quite so badly.

A rough hand covered her forehead then as Shanks looked down at her, worry creasing his brow, along with something she had no name for, and she might have remarked on it—such a terribly _serious_ expression for his usual good humour—but it was a feat thinking past the last remnants of her labour, and the trembling wail she could hear from across the room.

Her voice scratched against her vocal chords, painfully sore. “Is it—”

His answering smile chased some of the shadows off his face. “We have a son,” he said, relief coating the words with warmth and breathless wonder, before his expression changed again, his features contorting with worry. “Makino?”

Makino wondered how she must look. The mattress felt wet—someone really should change the sheets, the thought found her again—and she was dizzy, as though she was on the brink of passing out. She wondered if she should tell him.

She tried to latch her eyes to his, but found she couldn’t, her vision blurring, dark spots dancing along the edges.

She felt Shanks' fingers gripping her chin roughly, as though trying to get her to look at him. “Makino!"

He sounded distressed now. She wondered why, but couldn’t summon her voice to ask.

Shanks tipped her head sideways, cupping her face, his thumb pressing into her cheek almost painfully, and her eyes fluttered. She could barely keep them open. And she heard as his voice rushed out, the sharp lash of it as he snapped, “ _Doc—_!”

“Here, take him.”

“Wait—”

“Just hold out your arm, Cap—there you go. Rock him a bit, back and forth. Good, just like that.”

Then there were new hands touching her face, and a voice, not urgent but commanding regardless. “Makino. _Makino_.”

Their son was crying. She wanted to tell him it would be okay, that he’d done so well, that she didn't blame him for taking so long—wanted to tell the voice talking in her ear to let her sleep, just for a little bit. She was so _tired_.

“Damn it,” came the oath, and then Shanks' voice, rising above it—a command sitting in it now, harder than she’d ever heard it. And then she _felt_ him, his presence filling the room, like a leash snapping. The weight of it wrapped around her, and when she breathed next she allowed herself to relax, closing her eyes just for a moment—

 

—

 

—and when she opened them again, it was to find the room completely dark.

For one disorienting second she didn’t know where she was, but when she tried to move the burst of pain shooting through her had her rethinking her actions, and she was brought back rather rudely to the events of the day, and—“ _Ow_ ,” she croaked, the small, half-strangled noise slipping past her chapped lips.

A match was lit, the oil lamp on her nightstand flaring to life, lifting the oppressive weight of the darkness a little. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Makino to recognise her bedroom—and the figure who'd appeared at her side, having surged up from the chair that had been pulled up beside the bed.

She felt his hand on her brow, his fingers rough where they brushed some of her hair back from her face. His features were a mass of shadows and hard lines, the sight of it almost unrecognisable where he peered down at her, frowning. His hand shook where he cupped her cheek.

She murmured his name, her tongue almost too thick to wrap around it, and she watched as relief shivered across his expression, pulling at his severe features. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so—

 _Wrought_ , came the word, slow and sluggish, like it took all her strength to drag it to the surface. And with it came the realisation, even slower in settling, of just why he was looking at her like that.

“I'm sorry,” Makino managed, voice hoarse. “I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep, was I?”

His laugh was a short, sharp breath, a half-sob trapped in it. She felt where it ghosted across her cheeks as he touched his brow to hers, his fingers trembling by her ear. “My fool girl," Shanks said, roughly. "You had me worried for a moment there.”

She tried to smile, but it hurt. Everything _hurt._ Her eyelids felt too heavy to hold up, and there was an insistent throbbing between her legs.

 _Stitches,_  she thought, the realisation strangely detached, but with it came another, escaping her in a breath, “The baby?”

Shanks’ smile wavered a bit, before it widened. He still hadn't lifted his head from hers, the weight of his brow anchoring. “Ten fingers and toes. _Very_ healthy lungs. Entirely questionable genes aside, he's stupidly adorable. You should have seen the guys earlier when Ben was passing him around. Some of them cried.” His smile quirked, reassuringly sheepish, and she felt how her breath rushed out as he quipped, a twinge self-deprecating, "I did most of the crying, though."

Joy swelled in her breast, such an overwhelming feeling, Makino thought she might have sobbed. “Can I see him?”

She was relieved when he didn’t tell her to wait, although she had a feeling Doc might have ordered just that, but then Doc wasn’t anywhere to be seen. And maybe it was a selfish wish, but she hadn't had the chance to hold him yet, and with awareness coming back to her—the stitches, the fresh sheets that had been changed sometime while she slept, and Shanks' reaction to seeing her awake the most telling of all—Makino realised quite abruptly that if things had gone differently, she might never have gotten to do it.

The thought made her desperate, her fingers twitching against the clean sheets, and even without the blood soaking them and the fact that she was awake—that she was _alive_ , the full weight of which struck her without kindness—waiting just another minute was almost more than she could bear.

A kiss to her brow was her answer, and she watched as Shanks moved away from the bed, towards the crib tucked against the wall opposite, retrieving a snugly wrapped bundle from within, and found there wasn’t a trace of struggle, even with his one arm. She wondered silently at the almost practised movement, but before she could comment on it, he was transferring the bundle into her arms, and then she had no thoughts left for anything else.

Small—he was so infinitely _small_ , delightfully pink, and with little round cheeks and an adorably wrinkled brow. Snuggled in her arms, she could feel his soft breaths, and the warmth of him against her breast was a different kind of weight than the one she’d grown used to bearing over the past nine months.

The tears found no resistance, hot where they spilled down her cheeks. She didn't think she'd ever been this happy.

She looked at Shanks, and sobbed a laugh. “He’s _perfect._ ”

“Aye,” Shanks said, laughter rough and awed all at once, and in the sound of it Makino forgot about the lingering pain and the fact that it had to be the middle of the night, when he reached out to touch a fingertip to that tiny brow, his smile a completely new thing. “That he is.”

 

—

 

The day after her labour, Makino slept.

He’d sat by the bed through the night, unable to rest, fearing that if he closed his eyes, if only for a moment, he might wake and find she’d drifted off beyond the realm of sleep, to somewhere he couldn’t hope to reach her again.

Doc had threatened to give him a sedative if he didn’t get some shuteye, but he’d yet to make good of the threat, and so Shanks sat, watching Makino. And in the chair on the other side of the bed sat Ben, with Shanks' son sleeping soundly in the curve of his arm.

“He's cute,” Ben said, looking down at the baby. “Clearly, he takes after his mother.”

Shanks grinned, but it was a thing too tired for real mirth. Shit, he really needed to sleep. “We can only hope.”

“Yasopp said Makino was hoping he’d have your hair.”

His grin eased into something softer. The last time she'd let that wish slip had been on the day of their wedding, and she'd been too drunk to remember.

 _When we have kids_ , she'd said, delightfully inebriated and her look adoring as she ran her fingers through his hair.  _I want them to have your hair. Redheads. All of them. So many redheads. At least three. Maybe four._ Four _redheads. All ours._

“She did, huh?” he murmured, considering her where she lay, her features slackened with sleep. He tried not to think about how still she looked.

“She married _you,_ so her judgement is dubious at best,” Ben mused, but the smile that sat at the corners of his eyes was fiercely genuine. “You’ve been a bad influence, I suspect.”

“Oh _I’ve_ been a bad influence?” But he found in the familiar exchange an old, desperately welcome comfort.

Ben didn’t take his eyes off his godson. “Terrible, really. How will you turn out with this one for a role model, little man?”

“You know, I resent that,” Shanks grumbled, but the smile he couldn’t stifle betrayed his annoyance.

He looked at Makino again, still fast asleep in the middle of the suddenly too-large bed. She’d always been a slight woman, but now she looked too small for words, her skin sallow and drawn tight across her cheeks. It was such a stark change from how she'd looked through the last few months of her pregnancy, aglow with that uncanny radiance. And Doc had said there was no need to worry — that she just needed time to heal; that although a perfectly natural process, labour still took its toll on the body.

But there were things Doc kept from mentioning, Shanks knew, either out of courtesy to his already overwrought mind, or because of some old, near-superstitious reluctance, to invoke the name of death unless absolutely necessary.

He remembered the blood staining the sheets, and how she'd looked at him, her gaze unfocused and her breaths heavy and ragged, and too much to be simply due to exhaustion. And there'd been nothing he could do, his one arm already full, and when he'd held his newborn son and watched his wife lose consciousness, unable to so much as reach for her, there'd been a single, terrifying moment where Shanks had lost himself.

“She’s fine.”

Shanks said nothing to that, and Ben said nothing else. The sun poured in through the open window, cheerfully undaunted by the thoughts that plagued him, the smell of rain still ripe in the air, and the muted cry of the seagulls reaching them from the port. The bar below was filled with his crew and visiting well-wishers; Shanks felt them all, and heard their laughter where it drifted up through the floorboards, a comforting reminder. He didn't know who was running things, but couldn't dredge up enough will to consider it, even as he knew Makino would have wanted it.

He watched her chest rising and falling as she slept, taking comfort in the steady movement, although the bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes held a different reminder.

He didn't want to think about what kind of morning it would have been if she hadn't made it—couldn't even bear thinking about what he would have done, left with their newborn child, and Makino gone.

“I don’t know what I’d do, Ben,” he confessed, dragging his eyes away from her, towards his best friend, and his son sleeping in the crook of his arm. And he might not be one for cynicism, but Shanks found he needed to put words to this feeling; the realisation that he’d been so woefully unprepared for even the thought of losing her, the fact that he almost had still left him short of breath, and sick to his stomach.

But before Ben could open his mouth to answer—“Is he being melodramatic at my bedside, Ben?” the tired croak sounded, and it dragged Shanks’ gaze back, and the rest of him bodily out of the chair towards her. He didn't even bother to temper his reaction, but the fact that Ben didn't comment on it said enough; that despite his earlier confidence, Shanks wasn't the only one who was relieved to see her awake.

When he touched his fingers to her cheek, Makino blinked her eyes open, squinting into the sunlight, and he had half a mind to close the blinds, but didn't think he could have dragged himself away if forced to.

“Hey,” she murmured, dark eyes seeking his, sharp and focused now; a tether thrown to a drowning man, but before he could respond her brows drew together, knitting with worry. “When did you last sleep?”

And of course she would think of him, Shanks thought, grin startled and afflicted. Exhausted and recuperating and still she would find it in herself to think of him first. He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry, and the sound that left him might have been a chuckle as well as a sob.

“We’ve all been trying to tell him,” Ben said, before Shanks had the chance to defend himself. "He wouldn't even have a drink. It's been a whole new level of woeful melodrama."

His attempted glibness had little effect, and Makino looked ready to protest, her expression so earnestly offended, Shanks could only laugh. Fear and bone-weary exhaustion had seen him pushed to the brink both physically and emotionally, but the fierce affection he found in her reaction was enough to allow him to forget, if only long enough to catch his breath.

God, but he didn't know what he'd ever do without her.

"Are the others still downstairs?" Makino asked then, frowning. Even if she could hear them, Shanks saw as she searched them out, every individual. Her distress was endearing, given the reason. "But I haven't—"

"Your shipment arrived this morning," Ben said, and Shanks blinked, as surprised by the comment as Makino was. He hadn't realised Ben had gone through the trouble of seeing to her business, but then he'd barely been able to think beyond himself.

He felt a pang of guilt, but Ben only smiled. "It's been taken care of," he told Makino. "They're waiting to hear how you're doing, I reckon." The corner of his mouth tugged upwards, before he shifted his gaze to Shanks, his look meaningful. "Some of them had concerns."

Shanks saw as her expression softened, before her eyes met his. "I'm fine," she said, and didn't even bother pretending that it wasn't entirely for his sake. Her smile quirked, small and tender, and he felt as she reached for his fingers, the strong grip of her tiny hand seeming to emphasise her words as she told him, "I'm tougher than I look."

His laugh this time was recognisably his, although fondness made it breathless as he gripped her hand back, his fingers dwarfing it, and they were still shaking as he lifted it to his lips to kiss her knuckles. For the first time in two days, he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders, as he said, roughly, "You are that."

A small mewl of discontent chased the words, from the baby in Ben's arms, before an earnest wail followed suit, and Shanks watched with fascination as Makino’s tired grin widened.

“Oh, listen to that,” she laughed, and when her eyes met his, “Looks like there’ll be competition for my attention from now on,” she murmured, as Ben rose from his seat to hand over the baby.

Releasing her hand, Shanks drew back, giving her room despite the reluctance that sat in his fingers, but—strangely, watching her fit their son snugly against her breast, cooing softly to ease the small cries and her entire expression transforming as exhaustion was chased away by a love so fierce it _shone_ —

He couldn’t find it in himself to mind.

 

—

 

_“A boy?”_

“We’ve decided to name him Ace.”

There was a pause, long and laden. Makino wondered how long a distance it spanned; how many seas.

 _“Ace,”_ Garp said then, the hoarse rasp carrying over the line, to fill the whole room.

And then his laughter followed — loud, racking half-sobs, the snail positively shaking with it. And before she was even aware she was doing it, Makino felt tears running down her cheeks, to gather at the corners of her mouth, staining the smile she couldn’t have held back if she’d tried.

 

—

 

Two years had passed since the war when news of the Straw-Hats’ return graced the front page of the paper, and acceptance came to settle like a weight in his bones. He’d been waiting for this, although part of him had hoped they would have more time.

“You’re leaving again,” Makino said, the statement offered before he’d had the chance to open his mouth. Shanks wondered idly if he’d ever stop being surprised at how easily she could read him now.

Ace lay cradled in the crook of her arm, the sight such a staggeringly natural thing it took him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence — something that didn’t start with  _shit, you’re beautiful._

“A pirate’s life is never dull,” he heard himself say instead, but the words lacked the levity he’d hoped for.

Her gaze softened with understanding. “I take it that’s your way of saying you’re all heading into grave danger.”

Moving towards him, he read her intention, and when he held out his arm she placed the baby into the curve of it, her movements steady and sure, and the exchange a familiar one between them. Their son didn't fuss, and Shanks rocked him gently as Makino made to take the newspaper.

Tearing his gaze away from that little face, he watched her eyes skim across the front page — saw them widen, before narrowing, a frown forming between her brows that let slip some of her worry. And for a moment all he could think about was what she would look like when their son was nineteen and full of hot air, eager to take the world by storm.

“What’s that smile?”

Brought back to himself, Shanks focused on her face, finding her worry replaced with bemusement.

“I was just thinking,” he said, nodding to the paper, and Luffy’s grinning face staring back at them, before his gaze came to rest on Ace’s round cheeks, “about what we’ll be like, when this little guy has flown the nest.”

She hummed. “That depends on if he takes after you or me.”

“Hmm.”

It took a moment for her words to fully settle. “Wait—what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Makino only laughed, the sound light and effortless. And even as duty loomed at his back, tugging with insistent fingers, Shanks found the promise of a future beyond it, in his wife’s dear and familiar presence, and with his son snug in the curve of his arm.

 

—

 

“Come back to me,” she said, as she always did with every kiss that might be their last. And as always, he gave himself over to her small touches, her earnest kisses, until nothing existed beyond the circle of her arms, and he was no one else but the man she’d found underneath the scars.

His answer wasn't a verbal thing—not like their marriage vows, or the promise he’d made her over a decade ago. Rather, it was a silent prayer writ into her very being, as though he could imprint the whole of himself on her soul, leaving behind some part of him that would never be forgotten.

There was no laughter in their kisses on nights like this, but an urgency that sought to fill all the gaps left by the uncertainties awaiting them. And Shanks had no real assurances to give — only a fierce, nameless hope that if he’d ever done anything right in this world, he had earned a kinder epilogue than what was usually reserved for men like him.

When she fell asleep against him, he stayed awake, stubbornly unwilling to waste the hours left before their departure, even knowing that he would be regretting it in the morning. But if this was the last time he held her, and the last time he existed beneath the same roof as his son’s small breaths, he would spend every hour committing it all to memory.

He had earned that much, at the very least.

 

— 

 

_War is coming._

It was the one thought on everyone’s minds. The tides of the New World were changing, alliances breaking apart and rebuilding, but Shanks kept to the sidelines, assessing. The Government held its collective breath, waiting for him to make a move; anticipating it any day, no doubt, but he could keep his cards close, too. He wouldn’t show his hand until absolutely necessary.

In the end, it was a single comment that dragged him out of his indecision — laughingly made, the slight static over the line distorting it for a moment into something terrible, and Shanks could picture the grin, the flash of gold and missing teeth, and couldn’t tell if it was anger or pain that resurfaced, tugging viciously at the scars—

_“I hear congratulations are in order.”_

All form of coherent thought left him, along with his breath, and he watched Ben tense at his shoulder. The crew at his back had gone eerily silent.

“You so much as touch either of them, Teach, and it’s the last thing you do.”

The words were calmly spoken — too calmly for anyone who knew him to take comfort in it, and he felt the protesting _creak_ of the planks straining under pressure, the ship’s familiar warning that he should rein in his haki, but he was light-headed with the soft threat sitting in Blackbeard’s words.

_“Hey, hey, that’s not a very nice thing to say to someone who just wanted to congratulate you on your pretty wife and—”_

He’d slammed the mouthpiece down before he could finish speaking, and punched in a new number before Blackbeard’s laughter had stopped ringing in his ears.

“Rayleigh,” he said, before the man had the chance to so much as utter a single word.

 _“Kiddo,”_ came the greeting now, surprised laughter spilling into the quiet, but this was a different kind of mirth, and some of the tension in his shoulders relented, although not nearly enough to allow him to relax. _“What’s got you calling this old man?”_

“I need you to do something for me.”

 

—

 

Two weeks later, he received a note—a vivre card, crisp and new, and he knew just whose it was before his fingers even grazed the thin paper, and his eyes caught the words, scribbled in a familiar hand:

_They’re safe._

 

—

 

War came for them, in the end.

It was an inevitable thing, and he’d been expecting it this time, but one of the terrible truths of war, Shanks had long since discovered, was that you’re never truly prepared for it.

He found himself thinking of his son more than anything else, watching Luffy push himself back up time and time again; Roger's straw hat, worn but cared for, hanging loose against his bent back. He thought about the world they were fighting for, and about Makino’s wish for a gaggle of children.

He wondered, more than once, if he’d ever see her again.

War came, but then in the blink of an eye, it was over. The sea settled once more, and Shanks found he was surprised to discover he’d made it.

He watched Yasopp and the son he’d left behind well over a decade ago, all curly hair and wiry arms, and Shanks felt a pang of regret, thinking of the year that had passed since he’d left Fuschia. Ace would be walking now; his eyes would be a distinct colour. He’d be laughing, maybe even forming words. He'd accepted the long absence and the lack of contact with the surety that they were safe, but the need to see them presented itself now as he dusted himself off, weary bones protesting every movement and the still-healing wound across his chest a keen reminder of how close he'd come to never even hearing her voice again.

And he really was too old for war and grand battles; all he wanted to do now was see his family.

“I’m going home, Ben,” he said, voice hoarse, and relief, knee-weakening _relief_ the likes of which he’d never felt, made it difficult to keep standing. But he did, because he hadn’t faltered yet, even if the thought of her—the thought that _he gets to go back, god above_ —was enough to make him want to sink to his knees. “For good, this time.”

A sigh was loosed, along with a curl of cigarette smoke. If he hadn’t been so tired, Shanks might have pointed out that his best friend’s hair looked even greyer than usual, but the war had taken its toll on them all, and he really wasn’t in a position to be pointing fingers.

“It's about time,” Ben said simply, words that held infinite possibilities, and despite his exhaustion—despite his tired bones and the relief that had more than once threatened to pull him apart at the seams—all Shanks could do now was _laugh._

 

—

 

They took their leave of the Straw-Hats the very next day. Not enough time for a real party, but from the look on Luffy’s face, Shanks didn’t have to explain his reasons.

The kid he’d once known grinned up at him, a young man now, and tall enough to make Shanks feel suddenly old. “I heard,” Luffy said. “About you and Ma-chan.” His look softened into something almost too subdued for his personality. “You named him after Ace.”

Shanks thought of the baby that had last been tucked into the crook of his arm. He’d be too big for that now. Curiously, that thought only made him smile. “Yeah.”

Luffy laughed, fingers touching the hat on his head, and Shanks saw the words that sat in the gesture.

He smiled, and said, “Keep the hat.” And when Luffy lifted his eyes, surprised, Shanks let it stretch into a grin. “A king should have a crown.”

He thought of his wife, with all the kings in her novels. He hadn’t seen her in well over a year.

He wondered suddenly how he'd ever managed _ten._

Luffy looked at him then, expression strangely unreadable. “You know,” he said, in a voice that made him sound older than his scant two decades. “I met my old man.”

Shanks had heard — not of the meeting, but the relation. Then again, the whole world knew just whose father Dragon the Revolutionary was.

Luffy gave a shrug. “He was pretty cool,” he said, smile quirking, but without much feeling — like one might say ‘warships are cool’. “But—he wasn’t much of a dad, y’know?”

Before Shanks could offer any insight to that, a smile lifted the corners of Luffy’s mouth, and, “I always thought a dad should be like you,” he declared, with a shrug of his shoulders, the smile stretching to a full-blown grin. “Ace is lucky.”

Shanks could count on his only hand the number of times he’d been rendered completely speechless in his life. And he couldn’t have found the right words to respond if he’d tried, but then Monkey D. Luffy was, notoriously, a man of actions rather than speeches.

Palm resting on top of the worn straw hat, the gesture made Luffy start, and Shanks thought back to the skinny little boy crying on the Fuschia docks, and marvelled at the turn of events, now that he felt tears pricking against his own eyes.

“You did good, Luffy,” he said, and in the smile flashing beneath the brim of the hat he saw a captain over twenty years gone.

Then, and with a smile that remembered a fierce little anchor, with his punch as strong as a pistol and his easy trust, Shanks laughed. And, feeling acutely a sense of rightness sinking into weary shoulders, the sea within him settling, his heart's calm waters welcoming the quiet aftermath of a storm, but simmering with anticipation of changing tides—

_"Long live the king."_

—

 

Her son was sound asleep, curled on his side in his crib, small breaths deep and even, in the careless sort of slumber of children whose worlds are no bigger than the walls of their home.

The book sat in her lap, but even though she sounded out the words in her mind, her eyes couldn’t seem to hold onto their meaning, the ink of the letters slipping between restless fingers as she thumbed the corner of the page into a crumbled testament of a long-seated heartsickness.

It was one of her favourites, given to her by the local bookseller, her own library back in Fuschia with her bar, and the rest of her old life. Her bookishness had become a well-known fact, in this little town where she'd lived only a few months but where her presence had been welcomed so warmly. And she knew the story—knew the characters, their voices and their laughter as she imagined the sound, but there was no comfort to be found in any of them tonight.

She’d read the paper that morning, the good news that had finally allowed the world to release its tightly held breath, but there’d been no word, not from Shanks or Rayleigh, or even from Garp, although it was entirely possible the latter didn’t know where she was.

Continuing to worry the corner of the page between her fingertips, Makino tried not to think about what the reason might be — that it was something that couldn’t be said over the phone. She thought of Shanks’ vivre card, sitting between the pages of her favourite book, safe in her old bedroom in Fuschia. In all the commotion surrounding her sudden relocation she’d forgotten to bring it with her, and the thought of it haunted her now, wondering whether or not it was still in one piece.

The Den Den Mushi perked up then, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin, but a moment later she was scrambling for the table, heart in her throat—

Her hand paused over the snail, fingers trembling, and for a moment she couldn’t make herself pick up, imagining the number of different people who might be calling, but all for the same reason.

Then she swallowed once, and answered the call.

“Hello?”

A pause followed, and suddenly she was imagining the worst  _—_ Ben, no amusement in his voice, calmly relaying the news, or Garp, gruff tones dark with grief, not for the man himself but for her, always for _her—_

But then, a sigh—a shuddering laugh of relief, and holding a familiar warmth that had startled tears springing to her eyes.

 _“Hey,”_ came Shanks' voice, and it was almost too much, hearing it now after nearly a year.

But, “Hey,” Makino managed, the word breaking, splitting down the middle as her whole heart mended in one fell swoop.

 _“Sorry that I’m calling so late.”_ He sounded sheepish, not hurt or dying. She almost couldn’t take the relief.

She was shaking her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “You’re always late, Captain,” Makino said.

A chuckle, soft and sheepish. _“You know what to expect, at least.”_

She didn’t know if her shoulders shook more from her tears or her laughter now. “And yet you still manage to surprise me.”

She heard his own laughter spilling into the room, pushing against the walls, as though there wasn’t enough space to house it, and she allowed the sound of it to fill her heart to bursting _. "_ _Oh, my girl,”_ Shanks said, and the years had done nothing to dull the affection sitting bright in those three, familiar words.

_“You know that’s what I live for.”_

—

 

The island was a far-off thing, tucked away in a remote corner of the sea, but the little port-town it harboured had long been under his protection, and his presence there had always been met with smiles.

The blue-green waters welcomed them without reproach, bottled sea-glass stretching clear and quiet under an uncluttered sky as Red Force drew into port, and the breeze sighing against the sails promised the peace he felt like he'd longed his entire life for, finding it at his fingertips now.

He left the rest of his crew at the tavern, at the hands of the old barkeep who'd known them over a decade, and who'd taken one look at Shanks and said, with a warmly enduring smile, "She has the day off, although it took some convincing. She's not one to be dissuaded, that wife of yours."

Shanks had just grinned, the mention of her almost too much to bear, like the longing for that gentle stubbornness that had left its mark, here as surely as anywhere. "She really isn't."

He made his way now, following the instructions he’d been given. The sloping path from the town curved inland, across a gently swelling landscape dotted with flowers, and he picked his way with care, even as there was a part of him, young and foolish and three different kinds of ridiculous, that wanted to break into a run.

But there, nestled at the bottom of a steep hillside arching towards the sky, a small house sat, cheerfully at peace with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney. Half-hidden beneath the protection of a thick copse of trees, branches hanging low with their burden of white flowers, he could see the windows thrown open, the sunlight filtering through the branches glancing off the stained glass. A wild herb garden thrived along the footpath, and coming to a stop at the bottom, Shanks took a moment just to look at it.

Then, the sound of running footsteps; small, terribly light things, before a little shape appeared in the open doorway behind the wide wooden porch, standing on the uneven legs of someone who has only recently learned to use them. And beneath a tousled mess of bright red hair, a pair of large, dark eyes stared down the path towards him, fixed intently on his face.

But before he could fully connect the image with the one in his mind, the baby who’d slept in the curve of his arm, barely a dusting of hair on his head and too small to fathom, Makino was there, materialising in the doorway behind their son.

And all it took was a single heartbeat, but then her smile was stretching, wide across her beautiful face. Hoisting Ace up in her arms, a sloppy kiss pressed into the hollow of his neck yielding a giggle, she'd stepped off the porch and made her way down the path to where Shanks stood, rooted to the spot. The toddler sitting on her hip still hadn’t taken his eyes off him, and as they came closer Shanks found himself at a sudden loss for words.

At last, “Hey,” he managed, all other thoughts having fled, and leaving nothing more eloquent.

Her laughter was soft as a kiss as Makino echoed the now-familiar greeting. “Hey.”

Shanks shook his head, but couldn't keep the smile off his face. “Look at us. Masters of articulate greetings. We really should be better at reunions by now.”

She hummed, her eyes holding a terrible longing, despite the smile at their corners. “I feel like I’ve had my share of those.”

A world of possibilities in those words, and for once, all of them good. “Yeah?”

Her eyes gleamed, dark and lovely. “Yeah.”

And there was a whole world of things he could say to that, but all he could manage was to smile like an idiot.

“You’re late,” Makino told him then, expression teasingly serious, but her smile betrayed her attempted reproach.

His face must have given away some of his thoughts, Shanks found, because her brows lifted with intrigue even before he said, “I had to make a stop first.”

“Oh?”

He grinned, a boyish thing of gentle mischief. “You’ve accumulated a lot of books over the years, my heart. We couldn’t bring half our usual amount of barrels, or the ship would have sunk. We were starting to run low on alcohol—I know, there would have been a mutiny, but they were all so eager to see the look on your face when you found out, I think it staved off any rebellious urges.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he took in her expression, and he murmured, "There's the one."

It was an incredibly self-satisfying feeling, watching her jaw slacken with surprise like that, knowing that for all their long years and their hard-won peace, he could still turn her existence on its head. If only to return the favour.

Her mouth worked, and her voice sounded hoarse when she tried to speak. “You—”

Shanks shrugged, the gesture easy, and his shoulders light of their usual burdens. He thought of the books sitting in his quarters on the ship, stacked towards the ceiling. All the adventures she’d found for herself, and the ones he’d given her.

“I figured that if we’re making a home of this place, you’d want something from your old one. Yasopp said something about helping me build you some bookcases for them. Can you believe he doesn’t think I can manage on my own? Sheesh, you’d think you need two sets of hands or something.”

She was still looking at him, like she had once when he’d told her he’d never met anyone quite like her; as though she could hear the words he was saying, but not believe them.

Touching his fingers to her cheek, Shanks sketched his thumb along the soft stretch of skin, and the gentle lines writ at the corners of her eyes, wide and glassy now with unshed tears.

“Come now,” he said, gently. “There’s been enough tears lately, don’t you think?”

The laugh that pulled from her chest was a broken thing, but the smile that followed prompted his own, and when he tilted her chin towards him, her tears spilled over, regardless. And he hadn’t kissed her in over a year, but she still sank into him the way she always did, yielding her small body, all of her offered without hesitation, although the usually tender press of her mouth was a fiercer thing now, and when he found her hand burying itself in his hair, Shanks couldn't help the grin.

A small noise of protest rose up between them, and he drew back to find that little face, familiar features he saw in the mirror every day, from the arch of his nose to the shape of his brow. But there were softer lines there as well. His mother's features, found in the dip of his chin, and his round cheeks; the big brown eyes, entirely too compelling for anyone's good.

“Sorry, little fish,” Shanks said, touching the tip of his pert nose, his grin silly with delight at the pale freckles there, so much like Makino's. “Looks like you’ll have competition for your mother’s attention from now on.”

Wiping a hand across her eyes, Makino released a wet laugh. “Sounds like I’ll have my hands full.”

He was sorely tempted to make a lewd suggestion, but curbed his tongue. He _was_ forty years old, not a boy.

“Are you hungry?” she asked then, lifting her eyes to his, still gleaming with tears, and her flushed cheeks bright and pink.

And he honestly couldn’t help himself this time, his grin a wide, wicked thing, and she slapped his arm, laughing. “For _food_ , you shameless man.”

“Oh. That, too.”

“Incorrigible, aren’t you?”

Shanks laughed. “I’ve never claimed to be anything else.”

Makino shook her head, still smiling, and when she looked at him next her expression had softened. She gave Ace a bounce, her voice thick when she asked him, “What about it, little heart? Would you like your dad to hold you?”

Shanks doubted the boy understood the question, but when his mother shifted her grip on him, he held his arms out, and Shanks had precious little time to think about the fact that he hadn’t held his son in over a year, before he’d changed hands. And even though the weight was a different one, he settled on his arm without a fuss, small fingers burying themselves in his cloak, a little coo of delight following as he bunched the fabric with his hands, and Shanks' grin burst with a startled chuckle. The dappled sunlight caught in his hair, turning the red to burnished copper, and he marvelled silently at the difference a single year could make in such a life.

“What about the others?” Makino asked then, drawing Shanks' gaze away from their son, with all his little features, both familiar and unique.

He shifted his hold on him, re-learning the feel of his little weight. The small fingers in his cloak tightened their grip, tugging experimentally at the high collar. Another soft hum of delight followed, a sound that momentarily stole all his focus, before he managed to wrest it back, only to find Makino wearing an unbearably tender smile, as Shanks told her, “They’ll find their way here once they drink the tavern dry, I suspect.”

She hummed, a curiously thoughtful sound. “Come on,” she said then, motioning to the house; the open doorway beyond the wide, shaded porch. Shanks saw the chair there, and wondered if that was where she liked to sit and read—wanted suddenly to know everything; how she'd lived, and slept, and made this place her own. He wanted to be part of it, the life she'd made here; wanted it to be his, too.

“I’ll make you something to eat," Makino told him, glancing over her shoulder at him, and the hooded look she shot him was enough to make his brows shoot upwards in surprise, as she said, "Then once we’ve put him to bed, I can see about putting _you_ to bed.”

His laugh was such a startled thing, he felt Ace jump on his arm. “My sweet wife,” Shanks breathed, mock scandalised. “The things you say.”

"Hmm. You can blame my pirate husband for his influence.”

“Oh yeah? Must be quite the rogue.”

She inclined her head, grin bright and unfathomably lovely. One more war, and one more year, and the way she looked at him hadn't changed. “The very worst sort,” she quipped, and he was tempted to tell her it wasn’t all that strange that he found compliments in all her insults when she spoke them like _that_.

“But you know, he’s never broken a promise to me,” she continued, and with the words, Shanks felt keenly the little weight on his arm; the setting sun slanting across the roof of their house, on their island at the very edge of the world.

“So,” Makino said then, fixing him with those dark eyes that brought him back well over a decade, to a sunny afternoon in a seaside village, even before she added, “Are you going to come in, Captain, or will you continue blocking my footpath?”

He was sure his laughter carried all the way down to the port, but he couldn’t really find it in himself to be sorry. And what a truly unique sort of freedom this was, to be able to choose a life like this—

—and not feel a single shred of regret.

 


	2. second verse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after I posted this fic I kept thinking of more stuff that I wanted to include, and…well. You know how it goes. This part runs alongside the events in part 1, filling in some of the gaps.
> 
> And this is for rhdina, who is the loveliest, and whose unfailingly supportive comments are worth more than I can put into words, but I hope this might give you an inkling of my appreciation.

The day after her wedding, Makino woke with the worst hangover of her life.

Everything was wrapped in a haze, and she blinked her eyes open with effort, squinting into the dim light of Shanks’ cabin, although the action had her squeezing them shut a moment later, her regret vocalised in a wordless croak, partly muffled by the naked chest her cheek was pressed against.

It took her two more attempts to get her eyes open, and when she did it was to find the room tilting unpleasantly — granted, that might be the ship’s doing, not her head. The sheets were tangled around her legs, and her arm was tingling from having fallen asleep. She caught a glimpse of her dress in a heap on the cabin floor, and there were flower petals _everywhere._ She distinctly remembered the painstaking process of pinning them to her hair, and, although in far less detail, the actions that had led to their less-than-painstaking removal.

But she remembered him laughing, and despite the blinding headache she felt a smile touch her lips.

“Shanks,” she murmured, and meant to give him a nudge, but all she could seem to manage was make her fingers flop against his chest. Her other arm was beyond her control, trapped somewhere beneath her. She could feel her tongue keenly, but not her fingers.

“ _Loud_ ,” groaned the voice somewhere above her head, and Makino felt the vibrations beneath her ear. “Not so loud.”

He was warm beneath her, sprawled across the bunk and taking up more space than strictly necessary, and she felt him come awake now, the weight of his arm around her back lifting as he pressed his knuckles to his brow. And she felt her own headache respond in turn, pushing against her temples.

“What did I drink?” she asked, the words hoarse enough that she almost didn’t recognise her own voice.

Shanks’ answer was long in coming, but then, “From the looks of things, it's that weird  _sake_ we brought back from the New World.” His voice was rough with sleep and the same thing that ailed her, and if it hadn’t been for the unrelenting headache, Makino might have found some appreciation for the sound of it. “How much did you end up drinking?”

“Lost count,” she sighed, nose buried in his chest. She felt his arm tighten its grip around her shoulders, the gesture sympathetic. “Lucky’s fault. Or Yasopp’s. Can’t remember. Someone started a drinking contest, and I was already drunk.”

“…are you sure it wasn’t me?”

She tried to shove the pillow towards him, but her coordination hadn’t kicked in yet and all she managed to do was slap his chest pathetically, to which he caught her hand, only to brush a kiss to her knuckles with a nimbleness she couldn’t have hoped to manage in her current state.

“Still impressive, though," he told her. "You’re small, and too many shots of that stuff would knock Lucky on his ass.” He tried to sit up, and promptly gave up. “Oh—yeah. Nothing serves as a better reminder of your age than waking up after a night of drinking.”

“Speak for yourself," Makino countered weakly. "I’m barely thirty.”

“She says haughtily, and yet hasn’t even tried to sit up.”

“Can’t,” she murmured around a groan. “The cabin won’t stop spinning. Or maybe I’m the one spinning." The last part was hinged on a whimper. "Is this what dying feels like?”

“Depends on how you’re dying, I think.” His nose nudged against her temple, and she heard his smile. “Naked in the arms of a beautiful woman wouldn't be the worst way to go.”

She snorted, but her smile chased the words, and when his laughter rumbled out of him she buried it in his chest, savouring the warmth of his skin. The sun had yet to reach all the way to the bunk, and the cabin air was a cool welcome, even as she greedily sought the warm body beneath her.

There was a stray flower petal tangled in his hair, and she reached to take it out, smoothing it between her fingers. It was wilted and crumbled at her touch, but the sight of it sparked a swell of happiness that felt for a second almost more than she could bear.

“Hey,” Shanks said, and when she glanced up it was to find his grin widening, as though in realisation. “You married me last night.”

Curling her fingers around the ruined petal, her own grin was difficult to stifle, although she didn't exactly try. “I did do that, didn’t I?”

“Any regrets?” he asked, touching his fingertips to her cheek. She felt the cold metal of his wedding ring against her skin. “In the light of day, facing your spectacularly poor drinking decisions?”

“I wasn’t drunk when I accepted your proposal,” Makino pointed out primly.

“True, but now you’ve had the chance to get a real look at me. Time to face reality, and the realisation that I won’t look like I did on our wedding day every day.”

“You looked exactly the same as you always do," she said. "You didn’t even change your clothes.”

“Hey, I wore a brand new cloak!”

“And bermudas.”

“My very best pair.” Still grinning, he reached out to pick something from her hair, holding another petal up between his thumb and forefinger. “Couldn’t outshine the bride, now could I?”

It was difficult controlling her stupid grin. “Because there was a very real chance of that happening.”

His expression softened, and Makino took a moment to follow the lines of his face, the sharp angle of his jaw, and the scars over his eye. They were as she remembered, but somehow different; older and slightly harder, but he wore the years better than he claimed he did. The scars still sat in vivid detail against his skin, but she barely noticed them anymore, finding them as much a part of him as his eyes or his nose.

Touching a fingertip to one of the scars, she traced the slant of his brow as it tapered into the sharp bridge, below which sat that quietly tempting mouth, and the smile that was so hard to remove; the one that had a hundred different nuances, and so many of them hers — like the one she found now, shamelessly adoring but tinged with an almost unapologetic intimacy that made her breath sit a little lighter in her chest. He needed a shave, and the darker shadow of his beard shaped his features into harder planes and edges, begging questing fingertips.

She'd offer to help him shave later, she decided, pausing at his bottom lip before running her thumb lightly across it, and finding a soft laugh when he nipped playfully at her fingers.

It was a little distracting, having a husband who looked at you like that, while looking like _that._ She remembered being distracted by it, back when she'd been a girl and he'd sauntered into her life, all bright smiles and staggering good looks.

Of course, watching him now, nothing had really changed much in that regard, girl or no, and the thought made her smile — a silly, almost delirious thing that made her wonder if she wasn't still a little drunk. And she could see from the decidedly pleased expression that settled over his features that he found every single one of her thoughts written plainly across her own.

“You looked stunning, by the way,” Shanks told her then, voice a low murmur. “Did I tell you?”

She tilted her head, gaze holding his now. “Several times. Once through song.”

He winced. “I’d hoped that was just a liquor-induced dream.” A pause, and then, "It had several verses, didn't it?"

"And four refrains. I think you made them up on the fly."

"God," Shanks sighed. "I'm some catch, huh?"

“I remember thinking it was charming.” Her mouth pursed with her smile, remembering an entirely different song. At least this one hadn't included as many terrible euphemisms.

She didn’t know if he looked dubious or hopeful. “Really?”

“Hmm. Then again, I was so drunk I could barely stand up straight, so my judgement at the time was entirely questionable.”

He laughed at that, the sound deep and lovely, and she remembered his earlier question, asked in jest no doubt, but still—

“I have no regrets,” Makino said, touching her fingertips to his cheek, and finding the grooves of the scars. "I've never had, with you."

Tilting his head, Shanks kissed the inside of her wrist, the tender pressure saying more than the words that followed, playfully spoken, but they did little to conceal the sudden roughness in his voice, “Even with the blinding headache and the shakes?”

“Don’t forget that I can feel my tongue," Makino pointed out. "And more than anyone should be able to feel their tongue.”

She felt his laughter where it ghosted across the skin of her wrist. “You know, I’ve actually been drunker.”

Brow pressed to his sternum, Makino muffled her laughter against his chest. “Somehow I don’t doubt it.”

“The best party I’ve ever had, though,” he mused, fingers carding through her hair. He'd always been a man of easy touches, and their story was written in familiar gestures as well as in words, his endearments sometimes spoken, sometimes given with kisses and caresses; _my girl_ , playfully offered with the rake of his beard across her knuckles, and  _my heart,_ felt in the tender tuck of her hair into her kerchief, and the way his kisses lingered.

She smiled up at him, eyes straining in the poor light. “That sounds significant, coming from you.”

“Hopefully not as significant as my wedding vows," Shanks mused, not a beat missed. "That would be a little embarrassing.”

“Or just fitting,” she countered, her smile pursing, quick and teasing. “You’ve never been particularly conventional.”

He grinned, the stretch of his lips a staggeringly pleased thing. And this smile was new, Makino saw, and claimed it for herself, like the endearment that followed, a bright drop of wonderment on a tongue used to ascribing her similar names, but that never seemed to wear them out.

“My wife," Shanks murmured. "You know me well.”

“Yes,” Makino said, and with a tender surety that had his whole expression softening. “I do that.”

 

—

 

She wasn’t surprised by the news of their return to the Grand Line when they announced it. In fact, she’d been expecting it, watching Shanks’ expression darkening with every newspaper, and even if it was a heavy heart that accepted it, Makino bore the weight without regrets.

“We’re likely to be gone a while,” Ben said one evening when she set a drink down beside him. Aside from the few men scattered about the common room, the others were busy preparing the ship, and Shanks had mentioned something about making a call.

“I figured,” Makino said, leaning her elbows on the bar.

“Might be months,” Ben continued, meeting her gaze meaningfully. “It’s a long voyage back and forth, and we’re not sure what’s waiting for us when we get there.”

She didn’t like the sound of it, but nodded anyway. All she knew of the New World was through hearsay and stories, all of them heavily embellished, and some just plain beyond believing. But she knew there was a good reason for the rumours being what they were.

“I can handle months,” Makino said at length, when Ben offered nothing else.

He gave her a look. “I know _you_ can.”

That made her smile. “He managed ten years,” she reminded him.

“Yes, and he was insufferable for every single one.”

“Is this your way of trying to make me feel better, Ben? Assuring me that I’ll be missed?”

Ben just looked at her. “I doubt you’ve ever questioned that,” he told her, and Makino ducked her gaze, smiling into the glass in her hands. “You're not just his wife, you know. You're one of us.”

She looked up at that, blinking, before her surprise softened into a smile. “I—yes. You're right, I am that."

His mouth quirked. “We all consider you ours, although don't tell him I said that, or he'll cry mutiny." But his look softened a bit then, as he held her gaze, and when he spoke next, there was no humour left in his voice as he told her, firmly, "But we don’t abandon our own."

Makino felt her grip tightening around the glass. And she realised then that he wasn’t telling her this just to make her feel better, but to assure her that whatever happened, they’d still come back for her.

The thought sat, suddenly heavier in her chest than the knowledge that they were leaving, and all at once it was the only thing she could think about — the fact that their return might well bring tragedy as easily as joy.

“Hey,” Ben said then, dragging her eyes back from where they’d fallen. “I’m not telling you this to be an ass. I’m telling you this so you _know_ ,” he emphasised, “that if anything ever happens to that idiot, you’re not alone.”

Her brows furrowed a bit at that, and she wondered suddenly if he knew — if he’d looked at her with those clever, calculating eyes and figured out her secret; that at once terrifying and hopeful thing she’d suspected for some days now.

She didn’t get the chance to ask, because then the doors were swinging open and Shanks was there, grave expression lifting a bit at the sight of them.

“I could use a drink,” he declared, as he made to take a seat next to Ben. “Or five.”

Ben slid him a glance. “How did the call go?”

“Oh, about as good as expected, although no one’s dead yet.” Then he added to himself, quietly, “Meaning me, at least for the foreseeable future.”

Makino frowned. “Who were you calling?”

“An old—friend,” Shanks said, halting only a second over the word, “of Captain Roger. Not my friend, although that's not for lack of trying on my part.”

“It's a mystery why it hasn't worked,” Ben deadpanned, lifting his glass to his lips, and Shanks cut him a warning look, before knocking his own drink back, and Makino wondered idly what kind of conversation could have prompted that kind of reaction — and what kind of 'friend' he'd been calling.

Shanks met her look then, smile softening. “None for you tonight, my heart?” he asked.

“Considering our wedding, I think I’m good for the next ten years.” She pushed another glass towards him, her smile carefully demure, and she prayed that for once he wouldn’t notice just how bad she was at hiding her thoughts.

But whatever was on his mind tonight, it was enough to distract him from the fact, and when he lifted the glass to his lips Makino smoothed her hands over her stomach, and tried not to let herself linger too long on Ben’s words— _you’re not alone_ —and the implication that sat with the persistent and telling curl of nausea in her gut.

 

—

 

The morning of their departure woke her with surprising gentleness, the sky a soft dove-grey and the smell of rain in the air, and so perfectly at odds with the heavy thoughts that greeted her; the same that had chased her into sleep the night before.

Feeling restless and indecisive, Makino turned her attention to other things — the man stretched out beside her, breaths heavy and even and his hair spilling bright and red across the pillow. And in the dawnlight she kissed her husband out of sleep, until he was laughing against her, his weight warm and familiar, and when the first droplets of rain wet the windowsill the thought that he was leaving was the farthest thing from her mind.

Of course, their sleep-tinged bliss didn’t last long, and the rest of the morning was a tumult of noise and preparation, usually enough to keep her occupied, but for some reason Makino couldn’t seem to keep her focus, thoughts straying and leaving her hands idle.

Rough fingers covered her own then, dragging her thoughts back, and when she lifted her eyes it was to find Shanks looking at her, brows furrowed above dark grey eyes, the green in them hidden by the shade of the hull.

She caught the silver gleam of the chain hidden partly by his shirt, but didn’t drop her eyes to his hand, where she knew she wouldn’t find his wedding ring. And even if it had been her idea—

“You okay?”

Knowing she wouldn’t have been able to hide her concern if she’d wanted to, Makino hadn’t even attempted it, but, “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just…thinking too much.”

Shanks looked at her, the way he had of doing when he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him. And for a moment the words sat, perched at the tip of her tongue, begging to be spoken. A week of nausea, coming and going. The fact that she was late, and  _I think I might be pr_ —

“You’d tell me?” he asked then, the words a low murmur against the din of the busy wharf, and she started, thinking he’d somehow read what was on her mind, but then he added, “If you wanted me to stay longer.”

It was a useless sentiment, because of course she wanted him to stay and he knew that, but it wasn’t about that, was it? It was an offering — for her to be selfish, where she hadn’t been before. If she asked him to wait, one week or even two, he would, but...

But she remembered the face from the papers; the man who called himself _Blackbeard_. And she thought about the New World, and all the little islands just like hers; the innocent people on them who’d once lived with the surety of one man’s protection. But Whitebeard was gone, and of the three who were left—those the world called _Emperors_ and who ruled the sea like they were, and it was still a feat accepting her kind and quick-laughing husband as one of them—Shanks was the only one who'd care about those who'd be caught in the crossfire.

She didn’t look at the scars, but she had the distinct feeling Shanks had picked up on where her thoughts had wandered off to.

“Hey,” he said then, reaching up to tilt her chin, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth into a familiar, boyish grin. “A kiss for good luck?”

Her own smile came quite despite herself. “Ben says your luck doesn’t need it—that it’s ridiculous enough as it is. Maybe I’ll just jinx it, and make jealous whatever divine lady has you in her favour.”

“My, what a prospect—divine favour.” Shanks grinned, his thumb ghosting over the dip of her chin, and in that moment her heart settled. “My dear wife, has anyone ever told you that you read too many books?”

She leaned into the touch, tilting her head. “I would stop, but this pirate husband of mine keeps bringing me new ones.”

“What a terrible guy.”

“The worst.”

Touching his thumb to the corner of her eye, he caught the tears when she blinked them away, but before she could reach up to cover her eyes he’d caught her mouth in a kiss, hand dipping into her hair, to drag it loose of her kerchief. And when she fisted her hands in his shirt she didn’t care that it looked desperate — cared only about the fact that he was warm and alive against her, and that whatever her worries she wouldn’t add more to his shoulders without being certain.

“Boss!” called a voice from the deck above their heads. “Aren’t you getting a little old to be putting on a show like that? You’re embarrassing the newbies!”

That only made him kiss her harder, and when she laughed against his mouth, tears spilling over in truth, she heard it echoed across the deck. And when he drew away, sketching a kiss to her brow before making for the gangway, she didn’t tell them to come back safely, finding it already implied in the faces that regarded her from the railing.

And watching his ship pull away from the wharf, Makino resisted the urge to touch her fingers to her stomach, and to wonder how long it would be until she saw those same sails again.

And whether or not she would be greeting him back alone.

 

—

 

In the end, the sails that showed up on the horizon first weren’t her husband’s, but Garp’s.

She heard about it from the member of the crew who'd remained, who stopped by the bar with the news and the cheerful announcement that he was going to make himself scarce for a few hours. And then he’d left her, wash-water up to her elbows and her stomach straining against the fabric of a skirt that was getting a bit too tight.

And she wasn’t given much time to prepare before Garp was there, shouldering his way through the doors, for once without causing any undue destruction to her property, and Makino considered him calmly from where she’d been in the middle wiping down a table.

She was acutely aware of the fact that her condition was getting rather noticeable, and she fought the initial twinge of nervousness, watching Garp come to a stop just beyond the doorway. It was the part of her that would always be fourteen and awkward, and reluctant to disappoint the only father figure she’d ever known. And even though he’d been aware of her marriage and must have realised a child wasn’t an impossibility, she still squared her shoulders and braced herself for his reaction.

At first she didn’t think he’d noticed — wondered if maybe he’d been so set on accepting the news she’d broken to him months ago about her wedding that he hadn’t even considered that he might well find her in her current state.

Then he took a long look at her, gaze old and hard and sweeping over the curve of her stomach, before his shoulders sank.

“You’re pregnant.”

Makino sighed. _Here we go_. “Garp—”

“That red-haired piece of—”

“Garp.”

“—up and left you like this, did he? Knowing the goddamn _risk—_ ” Then, his expression going carefully blank, “I’ll kill him,” he declared, wholly calm. “I’ll kill the bastard dead. I’ll rip out every last strand of that ridiculous h—”

_“He doesn’t know yet.”_

His mouth snapped shut at that, grizzled brows furrowing sharply, and for a moment Makino wondered if she’d caught him off guard. And with that thought it was difficult keeping her smile from stretching too far. “Honestly, Garp. Give him some credit.”

The snort she got for that was decidedly unimpressed, but his eerie calm had settled into something more comfortable — the gruff acquiescence he was always so loath to admit to. “That’ll be the day.”

He looked at her then, as she wiped her hands dry on her skirt, the gesture emphasising the bump. “You gonna tell him when he comes back?” he asked.

Makino kept from cheekily pointing out that he’d said _when_ , not _if_ , and settled with nodding. She was certain now, after so many weeks of wallowing in her indecision. “Yes.”

Another snort, and his eyes dropped meaningfully to her stomach. “News like that could kill a man, you know. You’re giving him what, a few months to prepare?”

She huffed fondly. “He’ll adjust.” Then with a smile, “And I’m hoping for a reaction that’s not quite as dramatic as that. Although knowing him, that’s probably wishful thinking.”

The laugh that comment prompted was genuine, Makino was glad to see. “Yeah, well. At least I can take some joy in knowing that it’s likely to knock his feet out. Damn pirate.” But the heavy press of his brow was suddenly a very serious thing. “This is all a little too close to home for me, you realise.”

Makino’s look softened. “I’m not her.”

A sigh, carrying all his years. “I know you're not.”

She was about to say something else when she felt it — the fluttering sensation that she still hadn’t gotten used to, and her surprise must have shown on her face, because, “What?” Garp was asking then, features contorted with a concern that looked almost aggressive, and even her smile widening didn’t seem to be enough to wipe it off.

“It’s just the baby moving.”

Garp didn’t look convinced, and she let her hand drop from her stomach. “Garp, I’m _fine_. The doctor assured me that everything was normal.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, he kept the words to himself, and Makino felt her hands twitch, suddenly restless against her sides. She hadn’t asked in detail about what had happened to Ace’s mother — the fact that Garp had returned alone with Ace had told her enough, and she squashed the flutter of morbid curiosity she felt know, knowing that she didn’t need more to worry about than she already had.

“Come on,” she said then, giving his arm a gentle tug. “You look like you need a drink.”

His laugh was a bark. “Something's wrong with this picture. Ain’t I supposed to be comforting _you_?”

She laughed as he settled onto one of the chairs. “Oh, I don’t know about _wrong_ ,” she mused, tossing him a smile as she went to grab a glass, feeling again that familiar flutter in her stomach that never failed to steal her breath, and her smile curved, tears pressing against her eyes as she rested her palm over the bump.

“For once, everything seems to be exactly the way it should.”

 

—

 

“Mah, I guess it’s time for me to get going. My regards to your protégé.”

“Disciple.”

“Student, ward, fledgling— _oh_ , that’s a good one!”

“Are you quite finished?”

Shanks grinned. “Find me a thesaurus and we’ll make it a party.”

Mihawk’s expression was decidedly dry. “I see marriage has done little to quell your spirits.”

“Is it supposed to?” His grin turned shameless. “Did I tell you she’s really pretty?”

“In excruciating detail.”

“Then how come I don’t feel like you believe me?”

A dark brow arched; an elegant curve of wry amusement. “You also claimed she’d once said the same about you. You will forgive me if I have trouble believing this woman exists.”

Shanks knew his smile had to look pretty stupid now, but couldn’t be bothered. “Yeah. That makes two of us.”

Mihawk only shook his head, but a strange look came to settle on his face then, and Shanks’ brows furrowed. “Whoa—what’s that look?”

“You imagine things.”

“Oh come on, Hawk-Eyes—that’s a scheming face if I ever saw one. Ben has one just like it, except, you know, it’s not as murder-y.”

“Your crew awaits.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me because you’re afraid I’m onto something?”

“You should not be wasting daylight.”

“There’s literally no daylight here to waste," Shanks said. "It’s like darkness descended on this place and thought ‘well that’s it for me, might as well get comfy’.”

Mihawk cut him an unimpressed look, and Shanks knew what was coming even before he asked, “How long have you kept her waiting this time?”

Unsurprisingly, the comment hit its intended mark, and his sheepish smile felt too brittle to be true. “Three months. So far.” Shanks sighed. “Time…moves differently on this sea.” But his guilt sat with the same weight regardless.

Mihawk made a low sound that Shanks thought might have been agreement. “My regards to your wife, when you see her.”

Shanks’ grin widened at that, and he watched Mihawk pinch the bridge of his nose. “Your _regards_?”

“Did I say regards? I meant condolences.”

“Sure you did,” he laughed. “But on that note, give your brat my compliments for the spectacular shiner. It almost makes you look humble.”

“Do you make her put up with this incessant repartee?”

“Did I tell you that in addition to being really pretty she’s also _really_ patient?”

Mihawk shook his head. “A saint would put up with less.” But he gave Shanks a look then, strangely assessing — and knowing. “Speaking of which, something tells me you will not be alerting her of your return beforehand.”

Shanks grinned. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he enjoyed the thought of catching her off guard, remembering keenly how she’d greeted him back last time. And maybe it was a ridiculous thing to want for a man nearing forty, but so be it.

“I like to keep an air of mystery. I hear that’s important in a successful marriage. And besides,” he added, looking towards the ship, and the crew busy raising anchor. They’d be setting their course back to East Blue soon, and his heart felt light thinking about it.

“Who doesn’t love a good surprise?”

 

—

 

It was with a giddy sort of satisfaction that Makino watched the shock as it chased across Shanks’ features, before it came to settle in such an earnestly gobsmacked expression it took effort not to let slip a laugh.

And he didn’t have a difficult face to read, her husband, but it wasn’t often he was caught off guard so thoroughly he let his emotions show as vividly as this, and she wondered for a second if this was how she looked, the times he caught her by surprise.

In which case, she didn’t blame him for always trying. It was an immensely gratifying sight.

“Ah—surprise?”

His laughter chased away the lingering traces of nervousness that had followed her down to the docks, and she wondered what she’d been worried about, feeling the leap of his heart beneath her ear, and the shaking grip of his hand against her back. And maybe it was a selfish thing, delighting in his reaction now, but she couldn’t find it in herself to feel regret as his fingers sketched the curve of her stomach, the touch quietly reverent and his words sparse — a rare thing in and of itself, and speaking volumes where he didn’t.

And she didn’t think about it now, the fact that he might not have made it back. The sea had given her this moment, along with so many others, and she wasn’t about to stain it with thoughts of what could have been.

Of course, even if her regrets had lifted, she wasn’t the only one indebted to the sea, and her debt was different than the one Shanks owed, Makino knew.

On their way to Party’s to join the others, he gave a tug at her hand, and when she turned it was to find something strange in his expression; something harder than joy sitting in the press of his mouth.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he said, gaze drifting back towards her stomach, as though the sight was always tempting it. And his initial shock having worn off, she saw the long months of their separation in his eyes now.

Makino curled her fingers around his, thumb brushing over the scars on his knuckles. “You took as long as you needed.”

The laugh that fell from him held enough self-deprecation to make her grip on his fingers tighten, and she was about to offer a few choice words when he twisted her hand, bringing it up to brush a kiss across her knuckles.

“It won’t be forever,” he told her then, speaking the words against her skin, and her look softened, even before he said, “One day soon I won’t keep you waiting anymore.”

Her smile quirked, and it was with care that she pulled her hand loose from his, to cup his cheek. “Soon, hmm?”

She felt it lifting with the smile that stretched across his face. “You won’t be rid of me then.” Another glance at her stomach followed, before he added quietly, “Either of you.”

Her throat felt thick, and she couldn't will the hope from her voice as she asked him, “Yeah?”

“I’ll have to find a hobby," Shanks mused. "Melon-farming, maybe.”

“Those poor melons.”

His grin flashed, quick and earnest, but it didn’t take away the apologetic look in his eyes, and she felt the sudden urge to do something drastic, to banish that lingering note of regret. Because she'd spent four months missing him, right on the heels of ten years, and now that she had him back she didn't want to spend time regretting whatever days were lost, in the in-between.

But her earlier surprise had been drastic enough, Makino decided, and so she settled for something gentler, stepping closer and banishing instead the space left between their bodies. Slipping her fingers under the neckline of his shirt, the shape of him was familiar to searching hands, along with the warmth that kindled behind his eyes — and that was followed by a _look_ that had something sinking with an even warmer truth in her chest; and a girlish, almost giddy urge to suggest making a detour back to the ship, with the crew busy at the tavern.

She knew the distance between the top of her head to his chin, and what it took to cover it. And even if it was a little awkward with her stomach, he met her halfway, and when she kissed him there was no regret in the slant of his mouth, or the mould of his larger frame against her own, broad shoulders bending under her touch and the tightening of his arm around her back inviting her to follow.

And she was hard pressed to decide if the longing sat brighter in his departing kisses than the ones that marked his return, but whichever it was, she tasted every one of the past four months in this one, although it was a longing that held the promise of being sated, and despite herself, Makino couldn't hold back her laughter.

"The guys won't notice if we're five minutes late," Shanks said, and she heard the rough tremor of _want_ in his voice as she felt it in his body's unapologetic agreement, pressed against him as she was. "The ship is empty, and my cabin has been very, _very_ lonely."

She bit his lip for that. "I have you back for the first time in four months. There's no way I'm settling for five minutes."

She felt his chuckle, followed by his smile against her jaw. "You sure? I'd make it worth your while."

Makino drew back to look at him, meeting his eyes, and found the words almost tumbling off her tongue— _okay, let's go—_ but, "Later," she promised, smoothing her hands down his chest, and regretting it a moment later when all it did was send a note of heat singing through her, a tell-tale warmth of want rising under her skin, to colour her cheeks. And by his widening grin, the fact hadn't escaped Shanks' notice. "I want you to myself without having to worry that someone is going to come looking."

His eyes twinkled at that, and she watched his gaze drop lower, to her stomach where it strained against her skirt. But there was fondness in his expression now, not cheek. "In a few years, that will be a very real problem," he said, although he didn't sound particularly upset by the fact, Makino thought.

Her grin was his own influence, the particular shape of her smile reflecting a well-visited memory of his own, settling on her lips with an ease that had long since ceased to surprise her. And it was her turn to offer cheek now when she said, "Then let's hope your promise of five minutes still holds water, because I'll be holding you to that."

Oh, she'd missed his laughter, she thought, the sound of it leaving her suddenly short of breath. "Sounds like my kind of challenge," Shanks said. And with the corners of his eyes lifting like that and his grin entirely shameless, it was hard to remember much else, like the past four months, and the fact that they were having a far too private conversation in the middle of the street.

But one thing was impossible to forget, standing so close together, and with the warmth of his palm seeping through the fabric of her skirt.

“You’re going to be a father, Shanks,” Makino said. And she couldn’t hold back her silly grin now, speaking the words that she’d kept tucked away for so many weeks. “Can you believe it?”

His look brightened at that, as though putting it into words helped solidify the truth that she knew he could feel, where he had his palm pressed to her stomach, and the last ghost of regret in his expression fled on fast feet, chased off to remote corners.

“No,” he said, grin stretching as wide as she’d ever seen it go, and when he laughed next Makino was sure the entire village heard it — the rich sound so loud it rang across the whole street and the next, filling every corner and crevice, and every part of her, until she forgot that she’d been waiting even a single moment.

 

—

 

Several hours past their return, and Shanks wondered when the truth of his impending fatherhood would fully sink in.

“You’ve been wearing that stupid grin since we sat down,” Ben pointed out. “I’d chalk it up to excessive drinking, but you’ve barely touched your glass.”

Shanks looked into his mug, only to find it staring back, almost full. “Ah—so I haven’t.” And he couldn’t have wiped the smile off his face if he’d tried.

Ben shook his head, but his own smile wasn’t far behind. “I’ve got to hand it to her, that was some surprise. Payback for keeping her waiting so long?”

“Not everyone schemes as much as you, Ben," Shanks shot back, still grinning.

He glanced towards his wife then, and his smile eased into something softer. She was having a stand-off with one of his men over a tray of drinks she’d been carrying, her delicate features drawn into a decidedly unamused frown and her hands propped on her hips, the latter gesture emphasising the swell of her pregnant stomach. From what he could gather, there’d been a well-meant dispute as to whether or not she ought to be carrying anything in her condition.

Speaking of _—f_ _ive months._

God help him.

The thought resurfaced then, a persistent reminder that had come creeping forth at steady intervals since he'd stepped off the ship, that he should have come back sooner — that he would have, if he'd known, even if they’d had their hands full with the mess the war had left of the New World. Foolhardy rookies with every new tide, and Blackbeard’s ever-growing influence, like a festering wound refusing to heal, but if he’d known she was pregnant—

There was no use beating himself up over it. Not now that he was back, and when she'd told him quite plainly that she didn't want him feeling guilty about it; that she had her own guilt for keeping it a secret, even if she’d made the right choice, Shanks knew _—_ the _wisest_ choice, and the safest.

He watched her now, moving about with an ease that spoke of practice, and even if there was no need to prod further at the thought, he couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he’d been unable to come back now; if something had occurred that would have delayed his return a few more weeks, or even months. She would have been left to deal with it all by herself, and if something had happened to him, he would never have known about any of it — not the quickening movement that made her hands shoot to her stomach occasionally, or the little life that would come of it, four months down the line.

“You look pale,” Ben said then, and Shanks blinked. “Everything okay?”

“I’m not leaving until it’s born.”

Ben snorted, as though he’d pointed out that the sky was blue. “Idiot. Of course you’re not. You think they’d let you?” He nodded to the spectacle unfolding across the room, where Shanks could see Yasopp, now halfway through one of his many anecdotes concerning his late wife’s pregnancy.

Some of the others were chiming in, making corrections, no doubt due to having heard the story a hundred times over, but Makino was listening quietly, a familiar patience in the gentle lines of her shoulders. Shanks watched the tender sweep of her hand over the bump, before it came to rest by her hip, as though having found what it sought.

He tried to imagine what the source of those small flutters would one day look like, but found himself grasping for an image that wouldn't stay still. Although one thing he did find — a fierce, almost breathless resolve that he'd never in his life wanted anything more than to know.

But even thinking it, “It’s not always up to us, is it?” he asked.

Ben shrugged, seeming unperturbed by the problem put before him, but then he rarely was if a solution had already presented itself. “In this case, the world will wait four months to go to hell.”

Shanks looked at him, smile curving despite himself. “Ben Beckman, is that _optimism_ I hear?”

“Must be your imagination.”

“That would be my lovely wife’s influence.”

Ben glanced across the room, and shook his head with a smile. “It’s not the worst.”

“She’ll be a great mother,” Shanks agreed, his own smile widening at the thought, watching Makino. All that fierce affection, and that quietly protective heart. He felt, not for the first time, like he didn't know what he'd done to deserve either, or their unborn child.

“And you, Captain?”

“Hmm. Alas, I don’t think I’m cut out for motherhood.”

Ben sighed. “I walked right into that one.”

“I forgive you, Ben. We all make mistakes.”

“My relief is beyond words.”

Shanks laughed, and watched as the sound drew her gaze towards him, and felt his smile soften at the sight of the one that came to settle on her face. She looked—it was difficult finding the words to describe it, the healthy flush to her cheeks and the soft lines of her tiny figure; her gentle smile and the curve of her stomach in the cradle of her palms.

But Ben’s question sat in his thoughts as the evening progressed, until the rest of his crew had dispersed, and only then did it ease off his mind, coaxing Makino away from her chores with kisses that held both four months of yearning and an evening spent re-learning just how ass-over-teakettle in love he was with his wife. And for all her earlier demands to the contrary, it wasn't much longer than five minutes, the first time — the impatient, fumbling haste that belonged to horny teenagers, their kisses sloppy and their touches too hurried to be tender, and followed by a release so sharp and so longed-for it almost hurt.

Her own was a kinder thing, and he took his time with that, seeking to map the changes to her body, and discovering with immense delight that they weren't only physical — that along with her softer curves there was something new in the way she responded to his touches, her peak reached with surprising ease, and to his mounting gratification, more than once.

"I think this is a new personal record," Shanks marvelled, observing her where she sat astride his hips, her hair loose around her bare shoulders and her breaths gasping as she came down with him, her breasts rising and falling with her shudders.

He felt how she laughed, the sound soft and sated, and his eyes traced the shape of her; the round swell of her stomach where she'd rested her palm across it, the sight holding his gaze captive.

"For you, maybe," Makino said, smile full of gentle cheek, and when he gaped at her, explained, "I've had four months to myself with a changing body. It's been—educational." Her eyes were heavy where they held his, her lips dark and kiss-bruised. Reaching for his hand, she touched it first to her belly, before lifting it to her lips. "But I'm glad you're here now," she murmured, the words kissed against his fingers, her smile a little shy as she confessed, "It's not the same without you. Although you've, er, still featured into it. Frequently."

His own grin was painfully affected, and Shanks could only shake his head, watching her where she sat, the feeling expanding behind his chest too tender for simple desire, and probably visible across his whole face, from how her smile softened.

Leaning down, she kissed him gently, her lips soft and seeking as she cradled his head, making him sink back against the mattress, and he didn't think about the months he'd been gone, the feel of her anchoring his thoughts in the present. And even with her pregnancy an unavoidable fact, a constant reminder with her stomach pressed between them, he didn't think about the future as he touched her, distracted by soft skin and her small sounds as she came apart, her head tipped back and her hands braced on his chest.

But when she'd fallen asleep Ben's question came back, finding him as he lay awake listening to her breaths and sketching his fingertips over the bare skin of her stomach, chasing the occasional flutter of movement that made his breath catch as he charted the map of silvery-pale marks that hadn’t been there before.

They rose from her hips, cresting whiter than her skin along the swell of her stomach, the sight curiously captivating. It made him think of the delicate lacework of salt the sea left on the hull, and his smile held a note of chagrin at the thought, recognising his mind's desperate scramble to find something familiar to understand what was in front of him. A seafaring life had done nothing to prepare him for this.

“Mmmwhat are you doing?”

The tired mumble reached him through his thoughts, and lifting his gaze, it was to find Makino watching him from across the pillow, dark eyes hooded with sleep.

Wordlessly, Shanks splayed his fingers over her belly. His wedding ring was back on his finger where it belonged, and he felt her shiver as the metal touched her skin. “Just wondering what kind of father I’ll be," he admitted.

Makino hummed, a soft sound of contentment. “I’m not.”

“Wondering?”

“ _Worrying_. That’s what you’re really doing, isn’t it?”

He chuckled, but found that the sound yielded far more truth than he'd have liked. “Were you always this perceptive?”

He felt her hand then, covering his—or attempting to. It was far too small, and he took a moment to consider the gentle rise of her knuckles. “Fool man,” Makino murmured. “You should give yourself more credit.” Then, her smile quirking, “You always do with everything else.”

He knew it was testament to the depth of his worries that he didn't even protest the notion, so cheekily offered. “Yeah, but this is a first," Shanks said, moving his hand across her stomach, and watched as her fingers gave chase. "Uncharted waters and all that," he added, this time to himself.

Curled around the bump, his hand looked large and awkward — misplaced, almost, like it hadn't been made with this in mind; the sturdy-yet-fragile truth pushing up under his palm. And he knew his own strength, and hers; he knew the touches she liked, how much pressure to apply and where to prompt her laughter, and other, more intimate sounds. But she felt new under his fingers now, and his seeking touches were far too hesitant for his usual policy of learning-by-doing.

“That's never stopped you," Makino said, as though having plucked his thoughts right off their chosen track. "Ben told me the first time you entered the Grand Line, you leaned over the railing and yelled ‘I am amazing’ at the top of your lungs on your way into an oncoming cyclone.”

His laughter sounded almost too loud in the quiet, but her smile only brightened, and he wondered not for the first time if she really did find her life too quiet without him. “That traitor! When does he find the time to tell you all these things?”

She was grinning into the pillow now, but her grip tightened on his hand. “You are amazing,” she murmured, voice thick with sleep but the words terribly earnest things. “And you’ll be a great father, Shanks.”

He considered her where she lay, bared and curled up beside him, and their intertwined fingers sitting atop the curve of her stomach, just beneath her heart.

“Just great?” he asked then, because he couldn’t help himself. “What happened to 'amazing' _?”_

She shoved the pillow in his face, and laughed when he kissed her, the sound of it so loud that he felt it in her entire body, although he was mindful of her stomach now, and the life existing between them—a truth that had taken startlingly little effort to accept, even if he was still working on wrapping his mind around what his own role would be in that new, little life.

 

—

 

“Are you sure that’s the way it goes?”

“Yeah, it’s looking kinda lopsided.”

“Isn’t it built too high? What if the baby falls out?”

“That’s what the rail is for, you boob.”

“I still think it looks lopsided.”

“Hey, hey, _hey._ I’ve built a crib before,” Yasopp’s voice rose above the muttering. “So would you all lay off? Besides, I’m good with my hands. Always had a knack for tinkering.”

“You do have two of them,” one of the others pointed out. “Which puts you one up on Cap.”

“Eleven years, guys,” Shanks sighed from the doorway. “Planning on retiring that joke any time soon?”

“That depends,” Yasopp shot back with a grin. “When are _you_ retiring?”

“A little early for me to be throwing in the towel,” Shanks said, as most of the men crowding the nursery dispersed. The sunny yellow walls seemed to hoard the light spilling through the open window along with the sea breeze. Someone had already put up a mobile, an assortment of tiny ships bobbing happily in the air above where the finished crib was meant to sit. “I’ve barely got any grey hairs, and I figure my career should at least last as long as my moniker.”

Yasopp snorted. “That won’t be long, if Ben’s predictions are correct.”

“Hey, that bitter old coot is just jealous he was the first to turn grey. It’s wishful thinking, is what it is.”

“Or maybe he’s just hoping you’ll finally settle your ass down,” Yasopp pointed out, waving the hammer for emphasis. “You’ve got a kid on the way, after all. A pretty little wife with too much patience in her heart. A quiet, seaside village…” he trailed off.

He was considering the tool now, turning it over in his hands, and Shanks watched his expression soften into something rarely seen, something different from the usual bluster when he bragged about his son. It was a quiet sort of reminiscence that made him wonder what Yasopp would do, the day he did retire from piracy.

“My kid has left the nest,” Yasopp continued then, as though having read his mind. “I’ve got no pretty wife to return to, so I guess this is where I’m expected to sit back and watch my legacy unfold. Or something like that, anyway.”

Shanks hummed. “Knowing you, I find it hard to believe you’ll be doing much sitting.”

Yasopp laughed. “What, and let my kid have all the fun? As if. I’m not so old that I can’t still compete with the youngsters. ‘Sides, from what I’m hearing, my boy’s got something of a knack of sharpshooting. Got to test his merit against the best, isn’t that how it is?”

Shanks smiled, and kept from mentioning the expression that passed across Yasopp’s face at the heels of that remark — the reminder that no one knew where most of the Straw-Hats had disappeared off to, or if they were even alive. He knew where Luffy was, and the young man Mihawk was training, but as for the others…

“I imagine we’ll be seeing them soon enough,” Shanks said instead, and Yasopp looked up from where he’d been considering a loose screw.

“Yeah,” Yasopp sighed. “Although I’ve heard war doesn’t make for very good reunions.”

Shanks didn’t say anything to that, all too aware of the truth in that statement. Instead he stepped into the room, to crouch down beside where Yasopp was sitting, fiddling with the tools.

“Need a hand with that?” Shanks asked, nodding to the unfinished crib.

A blond brow lifted, and with it, the tension. “Only one?”

“Hilarious. I hope for Luffy’s sake your kid didn’t inherit your sense of humour.”

“Hah! Compared to the genetic lottery your brat is up against, I think mine got off easy,” Yasopp shot back with a grin.

“Just hand me the hammer, Curly.”

“Sure, I’ll _hand_ it to you, Boss. Here you g— _ow_!”

“Oh look at that, my hand slipped. So clumsy, but you know how it is—I’ve only got one.”

“Right on the _shin bone—_!”

“Oh walk it off, you noodle—you’ve had worse. Now tell me what we’re up against here. Where does this thingy go?”

 

—

 

She’d felt the stirrings of something all morning—a near premonition-like sense that something was afoot, like an inkling at the back of her mind that she couldn’t put her finger on.

Later, she’d find time to feel silly for not realising it sooner, but in the middle of it all she’d been too distracted by the pain to chastise herself for not having caught onto the fact that the small discomforts she’d felt throughout the day had been her body’s cheerful reminders that she was going into labour.

She’d been standing by the bar when realisation finally hit, the sudden jolt of pain enough to make the glass slip from her hand to shatter on the floorboards, and then she was collapsing in on herself, a startled curse pulling from her lips.

She caught the shrill song of multiple chairs pushed back, the legs scraping across the floor in brittle disharmony. And she heard the concerned chorus of voices that sprang up in its wake, holding her name; a quickly building panic strung between the syllables and their presences that didn't exactly help soothe her own.

Then—“Makino?”

A steady hand under her elbow, and Ben was there, no panic in his voice but his expression completely wiped of his usual amusement, and she would have pointed it out if it hadn’t been for the still-ongoing contraction that pushed a strangled shout past her clenched teeth instead.

“What do we do?” someone was asking, and Makino was tempted to laugh — tempted, but she didn’t, because it really was a sweet thing, their collective worry, even if part of her wanted to remind them that she was the one who’d be doing all the work.

Of course, Ben didn’t have Makino’s sense of discretion. “Are you the ones giving birth?” he asked, wholly deadpan. “No? Then sit your asses back down.”

There was a clutter of restless movement beyond her line of vision, and she’d sunk into a crouch, curled in on herself in a vain attempt at dampening the pain somewhat, although it didn’t really help.

“Someone fetch Doc,” Ben was snapping then, and Makino heard the bat-wing doors swinging, but was too busy trying to breathe through her nose to keep track of what was going on around her. There was glass scattered on the floor by her feet, and for a moment the sight distracted her enough to forget about the pain — a memory slipping in, over ten years old and well-visited, and in her current predicament it was nearly enough to make her laugh.

Then Shanks was there — she felt him long before his hand touched against her back, and heard her name, wrapped with concern and something harder, but when she looked for a reassuring remark to offer him all she managed was a grimace.

“Upstairs,” Doc’s voice was saying then, in that gruff-but-efficient way she’d come to expect, but Makino couldn’t have lifted herself up if ordered to.

She felt the hand resting on her back twitch, but, “I’ll do it,” Ben’s voice said, and then there were unfamiliar arms hoisting her up, and she caught the flicker of helplessness on her husband’s face before her vision tilted, and she realised she was being carried up the stairs.

“Sorry about the weight,” she hissed through her teeth as Ben cleared the landing, and received a snort in return.

“I hauled your husband’s dead-drunk ass across the length of a winter island once. This is a vast improvement.”

Makino wanted to laugh, but what escaped instead was a groan. Oh, it _hurt._ “You always know how to lighten the mood, Ben.”

His mouth quirked. “I try.”

She felt the mattress sinking beneath her as he put her down, before Doc was at her side, and she caught the tail-end of a disagreement in the doorway before Shanks was shouldering his way through, and despite the pain and the reality of what was happening bearing down upon her, his presence was enough to settle her racing heart somewhat.

“Nervous?” Doc was asking then, shoving a pillow behind her back, and Makino thought she managed a reply, although it sounded more like a choked, entirely unconvincing laugh than anything even resembling the wit she'd been trying for.

“Don’t worry,” he said, rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows with a curious sort of efficiency for a ship’s doctor who Makino doubted had delivered many children in his time. But the smile he gave her was reassuring—or as reassuring as you could get, on such a hard face.

“This will be over before you know it.”

 

—

 

Twenty hours later, Shanks wanted to shove Doc’s words back down his throat, but as it was he was too busy trying to divide his attention between the tiny, squalling creature that had been handed to him, and the fact that Makino had lost consciousness.

“Ben,” Doc was snapping then, without looking up. He was wiping his hands clean, the blood a stark contrast against the blue-green ink of his tattoos, and it seemed a curiously fruitless gesture to Shanks. It was all over the front of his shirt, soaking the sheets, and the colour seemed to have burned itself into his retina. “Get him out of here.”

Shanks was ready to protest, but Ben’s hand was on his shoulder, pushing. “Come on.”

He knew he sounded incredulous—that there was a half-hysteric laugh pushing up his throat, but, “I’m not leaving,” he said, gaze fixed on Makino's face, pale and unresponsive where she lay on the bed. God, there was so much _blood_. "She's—"

The grip on his shoulder tightened, dragging his eyes away, and Ben's expression was unyielding. "Don’t make me pick you up and carry you,” he said. “I promise you it’ll be far less chivalrous than when I carried Makino upstairs.”

He was tempted to point out that Ben wouldn’t try it so long that he was holding the baby, but the thought made him look down, suddenly and brutally reacquainted with the realisation that he had a son, and that if there was ever a time to be a father before he was a husband—

“Come on,” Ben said then, and his voice had lost its edge. “She’ll be fine.” And when he gave him a push toward the door now, Shanks went, trapped between choices but none of his usual surety to be found. Sea-savvy and certain on open waters with the chilling promise of the depths always lurking beneath every decision, but here with solid ground underfoot all he could do was allow himself to be led.

Then the door closed behind them, before Shanks could get a last look, and the uncomfortable finality of it all had him turning back. “Ben—”

“Doc’s got it covered," Ben said. The grip on his shoulder hadn't relented. "Remember that this is the guy who dragged you back from the beyond when you went and got yourself a traumatic amputation. She’ll be _fine_.”

There was another protest rising to join the first, but he couldn’t find the words to speak it, torn between the sudden quiet that had descended on the room they’d just left and the hearty wails from the baby in his grip. And he still heard the faint echo of Makino's screaming in his head; after so many hours of it, the memory had burrowed too deep to be uprooted with ease, and watching the closed door, Shanks had the sinking feeling it was there to stay.

He'd never seen her in so much pain, and the sudden, sobering thought followed, that it might well be the last memory he had of her.

“What do I do?” he asked, looking down at his son— _his son, god what a prospect_ —and didn’t rightly know what he was asking. _What do I do now? What do I do if she doesn’t—_

His best friend of many years looked at him, and Shanks was once again reminded why Ben held the post he did.

“First,” he said, his voice entirely level, “you make sure this little guy has everything he needs. You could start by counting fingers and toes. I hear that’s what new fathers are supposed to do. Then you can show him off.” His look was meaningful when he added, “You have a whole crew waiting for news. And you are our captain, even if you are a new father, and a husband.”

Shanks didn’t tell him that in that moment he felt like neither of those things, but when Ben gave him a nudge this time he walked, his body moving of its own accord, his legs carrying him down the corridor towards the stairs.

The baby had quieted, wrapped in the soft blanket Doc had kept ready, snug in the crook of his arm. Watching him, Shanks tried not to think about the fact that they hadn’t decided on a name yet, knowing it would take him down a dangerous path, towards that unthinkable future; the one without her in it. He couldn't even imagine having to make that decision by himself, let alone raise their son without her.

His whole crew was there when they arrived, where they had been for well over a day, Makino’s bar filled to its full capacity. Laughter and conversation greeted them as they came downstairs, the noise level starkly at odds with the quiet they'd left, and it might have been a welcome change, a distraction when he so desperately needed one, but it took effort forcing himself to face them all, feeling that with every step away from their bedroom, he was furthering the distance between them.

The whole room fell quiet at the sight of them, as Shanks came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. And from a crew as loud as his, it wasn’t a gentle quiet, descending so abruptly it was like someone had flipped a switch.

No one spoke. And they were all looking at him, Shanks saw, their gazes having lifted from the baby in his arm to his chest, the grins that had greeted their arrival exchanged with expressions of outright horror.

"Ma-chan?" someone asked then, the endearment wavering, as though the question resisted asking, but before Shanks could ask how they knew something was wrong—

"Your shirt," Ben said, and when Shanks looked down it was to find it covered in Makino's blood, the whole front of it stained red. For a second the sight had him so arrested he couldn't tear his eyes away.

The jarring silence persisted, but something else had crept into it now—a rapidly dawning realisation, and horror was quickly followed by the beginnings of grief, a whole crew's worth, and the full weight of it was too much for him to bear, his knees threatening to buckle under the pressure.

Ben felt it, too, but didn’t allow it to get comfortable. "She'll be fine," he was saying then, because Shanks couldn't. He couldn’t even summon his voice. And it was the same words he'd spoken earlier, offered with the same unwavering conviction, but they did little to loosen the knot of fear that was cinching, tighter and tighter within him. He felt like he was going to be _sick._ "There were some complications, but Doc has things under control."

Relief chased across multiple faces, although not all of them, and Shanks knew it was probably his fault; that his expression didn't exactly inspire confidence, and that his silence said more than enough. And it was usually his forte, keeping morale up in the most dire of straits, but for the life of him he couldn't even will himself to smile, remembering how she'd looked at him before she'd passed out.

They were asking questions now, emboldened by Ben’s assurance, their voices stumbling over each other, barely a pause for breath between them, and their worry was far from soothed, even as Ben remained steady as rock. Shanks heard them inquiring about what had happened, about Makino's condition and what Doc had said, but he could barely focus on Ben’s answers as he gave them. It took all his strength just to keep standing.

Ben was before him then, reaching for the baby in his arm, and Shanks held him tighter, a knee-jerk reaction that came without thinking, before Ben said, quietly but without room for argument, "Go change.” When Shanks just looked at him, everything he couldn’t put into words written on his face, Ben’s expression eased a bit. “We’ll be here," he said, a little gentler this time. "I’m going to pass your kid around. The captain’s son deserves a proper introduction.”

For a beat, Shanks just stood there, unable to act, before he slowly eased his grip on the tiny bundle, allowing Ben to take him. He felt the absence of that little weight almost physically, and had to stop himself from pulling him out of Ben's arms, acutely aware that if he lost Makino now, their son was all he had left of her.

“We haven’t named him yet,” Shanks blurted then, his voice rough, as though he'd forgotten how to use it. And he didn’t say anything else, but saw the understanding in Ben’s eyes as he heard the things he didn’t say; that he couldn’t bear putting into words.

“You will,” Ben said, simply. Then, the corner of his mouth lifting, “Knowing Makino, she’ll have something to say about your suggestions.”

Shanks didn’t quite manage a laugh—thought that if he tried, something else would come out instead.

“Change your shirt,” Ben repeated, calmly but firmly. Direction, when he sorely needed it. “There’ll be a drink ready for you when you get back, because you look like you need one. And then you’ll get some rest before you keel over. You’re not a teenager anymore, so you can’t pull all-nighters without consequences. Consequences which will be felt most keenly by _me_ ,” he added, and with a wry quirk of the lips that made Shanks feel, if only for a moment, that things were going to be _okay_ —

"Because when she wakes up and finds you a sleep-deprived mess, _I’m_ the one who’ll be hearing about it.”

 

—

 

He located a clean shirt in his quarters on the ship, but his fingers were shaking so badly he couldn’t button it closed, and so he left it hanging open. He washed his face, the cold water a welcome shock to his system as he dunked his head in the washbasin, as though doing it would help wipe the colour of her blood from behind his eyes.

Dragging his hand over his face, Shanks felt the rough scrape of his beard as he scrubbed his fingers across his cheeks. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, but catching sight of himself in the mirror, didn’t think doing it would make much of a difference, or make him look any less harrowed than he did. And anyway—if he couldn’t even manage buttoning his own shirt, he didn’t trust himself holding a razor.

Abruptly, the memory found him of the first time she’d helped him shave. It had been right after his amputation, and it had been well over a decade since he’d required assistance where that was concerned, but Makino had taken to doing it whenever he was home; a small, intimate routine between the two of them, and one he’d gotten so attached to, Shanks found he couldn’t imagine his life without it—without _her_ , which was what it came down to in the end, all the little reminders that kept resurfacing, one after the other.

He couldn't bear being on the ship any longer, the quiet too pervasive with his whole crew at the tavern, and too many reminders of her in his cabin—the rumpled sheets of his bunk, and the ship's logs she thought he hadn't noticed her organising; the forgotten kerchief on his desk and the bottle of whiskey they hadn't touched after she got pregnant. And making sure there was no blood left on any of his clothes, he made to go back.

The fresh sea air helped clear his head a bit, after a whole day spent in their stuffy bedroom, and walking up from the wharf, Shanks was relieved when no one intercepted him, the little port asleep, at least aside from his crew at the bar. He didn’t know if he could have endured their excitement, asking about the baby, and how Makino was doing; didn’t think he could have answered their questions, or that he had the strength to tell them he didn’t know if she’d make it—or to lie and assure them she was doing just fine. She was so fiercely loved here, among these people; he couldn't imagine what the loss would do to this place.

He had a fair idea of what it would do to him, if only because he couldn't seem to breathe past the thought.

Stepping through Party's doors, he found the others gathered around the baby, asleep now in Lucky’s arms. There was no sign of Doc anywhere, and there was a second where Shanks was fully prepared to just say _screw it_ and walk upstairs, when Yasopp pushed a drink across the table towards him, the suggestion clear. And he didn’t allow Shanks the chance to speak before he said, “Banchina was bedridden for most of her pregnancy."

He had his arms crossed over his chest where he sat, and held Shanks' gaze, unflinching. "The doctor was pessimistic. Said it wasn’t likely either of them would survive, and that if only one of them did, it probably wouldn’t be her. She was sick a lot. No one thought she was going to make it.”

The comparison felt unusually cruel, but before Shanks could ask why he was even telling him this, “But she did make it," Yasopp said, the corner of his mouth lifting a bit; an old, desperately affectionate smile. "Always was a fighter, that one. You wouldn’t think it by looking at her, but she was. Your girl's no different. Makino always was a tough little thing.”

The words dared him to contradict them, a spark of challenge in his eyes that Shanks recognised, and he couldn't deny it—knew better than anyone that what Yasopp said was true, but even as he knew it, he couldn't forget how she'd looked, or how it had felt, her presence slipping right through his fingers.

He didn’t move, but dropped his gaze to the offered drink. And he didn’t feel like drinking anything, but accepted the implied offer of support, taking a seat at the table. And sinking into the chair, Shanks felt suddenly just how tired he was.

His son hadn't stirred since he'd come in, snug in Lucky's arms, the unfathomably tiny shape of him seeming to contradict the magnitude of what he represented. Shanks couldn't tear his eyes away from him; from the little wrapped bundle, and the pirates gathered around him.

“We counted,” someone said then, making him look up, caught off guard by the delight in the remark, although not as much as he was by what followed. “Fingers and toes. There’s ten of each. We’ve also decided that he’s way too cute to be yours, Boss.”

Despite himself, his grin stretched, fast and startled across his face. “Watch it,” Shanks said, but there was no bite behind the warning, sounding too tired for convincing reproach.

"He's Makino's, though! No doubt about that."

"Yeah, have you ever seen something so _cute_?"

"And so small! You could fit him in a tankard!"

"We didn't," Yasopp assured him, at Shanks' raised brow. "But he's a wee thing, alright, although that only figures, given his mother. Could still take after you later, though." He grinned, a fiercely proud thing. "My boy did, eventually."

They were all grinning now, their smiles sitting a bit easier on their faces, but it was Yasopp who said, “Speaking of our girl. We thought we'd take advantage of her absence to shamelessly offer our unsolicited opinions. You know—as to what name you're giving him."

The mention of her hurt, and at any other time he would have teasingly taken offence to the cheeky use of _our girl_ , but the intention behind the remark wasn't missed; the assurance that, whatever happened, he wouldn't be facing it alone, and that beyond being his crew, they were also his family—were Makino's, and their son's. She was theirs, and in no small way. She always had been.

"So," Yasopp said then, grinning. "Who wants to go first?"

Shanks was about to answer when the sound of a door closing upstairs seized his attention, and he was already out of his seat when Doc descended the steps.

The whole room held its breath. Shanks felt the quiet, the things it held, but couldn't bring himself to speak—to ask the question he didn't know if he wanted answered.

Doc's shirt was bloodstained, his eyes lined with the same colour, and he looked exhausted, but, “She’ll pull through,” he told Shanks, before he could even open his mouth, and the tension in the room left it, their collective relief so violent it nearly took his footing from underneath him. Shanks heard as it was followed by their voices; the breathless murmurs that rushed in to fill the silence, the whole room, but he couldn't find his own to speak.

Doc gave a nod to the untouched glass on the table before him. “Are you going to drink that?”

Shanks' answer was to shove away from the table, the relief he felt as desperate as the need to see her, but he stopped before he'd reached the stairs, looking back at the baby, gripped by sudden indecision; the knowledge that he couldn't just drop everything. Not anymore—not as a father.

"Go see to your wife," Ben told him. "I'll bring him up later." Then with a wry smile, "And get some sleep," he added. "There'll be little of that in your future now that you're a new parent. Especially if he really is your son."

Shanks huffed a laugh, too startled to realise it was the first he'd managed in hours. "Just for the suggestion that he's not, you're on diaper duty until further notice."

Ben just smiled, and, "Captain," he said simply, both in answer and as a reminder, not just of what Shanks was, but what they all were, although there was more than just loyalty implicit in the quiet statement; was more than just a captain's expectations of obedience in the trust Shanks demonstrated as he turned to walk up the stairs, leaving his newborn son with them.

But then, there was more than loyalty to family, and his men had never been anything less than that.

 

—

 

For all that Ben had a point, it would be a while before Shanks found rest.

The silence of their bedroom was a pressing thing, a heavy reminder of all the things the past two days had brought to the surface, and with enough force that he was still reeling from it.

The baby was asleep in his crib, little breaths too quiet for Shanks to pick out, and so he settled for listening to Makino’s instead. Another reminder, and of far better things than what occupied his mind at present, although whenever he tried to reach for it, it was like sand slipping through his fingers.

Her stitches still healing, she was curled awkwardly on her side, her cheek pressed to his chest, and it took effort not to just pull her to him, as close as she’d come, until he couldn’t just hear her breaths but _feel_ them, along with her heartbeat. The physical reminder felt suddenly necessary, after so many hours spent sitting at her bedside, tethered by nothing but the weak thread of her presence, which he'd feared would snap if he dropped his concentration for even a second.

He wasn't technically supposed to be disturbing her bed rest, and Doc would give him an earful for it if he caught him, but she'd asked, perhaps more for his sake than her own, but Shanks didn't think it mattered which it was. After the past two days, he just needed to hold her, if only so he would stop thinking about that future where he couldn't; the one that had come into his mind and then promptly refused to leave it.

As though she'd read his thoughts, he felt her laughing sigh, and, “Honey. You’re thinking very loudly,” came the murmur, her syllables thick with exhaustion but tinged with humour, although for once, Shanks couldn’t find it in himself to reciprocate.

He felt as her fingertips touched his cheek, and when he glanced down it was to find her looking up at him, her eyes large and dark and all traces of humour gone now, replaced with understanding, even as she asked, “What is it?”

He tried not to focus too much on how tired she still looked, and wondered if this was how she’d felt once, when he'd been the one recovering, one arm short and burning through with a fever. He’d joked about it at the time, finding it easier to deal with his loss through humour than by addressing it directly, but—“Yesterday,” Shanks said, and it took effort dragging the words out, as though voicing the fear out loud would make it more real than it already was. “I told you that you'd had me worried.”

"You did," Makino agreed. Her smile quirked, small and knowing. "That's quite a feat, if you think about it. You being the self-proclaimed epitome of confidence."

Had the situation been different, he might have smiled, but now Shanks just looked at her. And he saw from her expression that she could tell what was coming, but, “I thought I was losing you,” he confessed, with all the weight of that admission, no joke in sight. Even with her attempts at lifting the mood, he couldn't make himself joke about this. Not about losing her.

He felt as her palm cupped his cheek, her callouses soft and her fingers small where they brushed against the edges of his scars. “Silly man,” Makino said, smile curving against the pillow and around the familiar endearment, but there was nothing teasing about the words when she spoke them, gently but firmly, like a promise. “I’m not going anywhere.”

There was a part of him that felt like protesting, the one that remembered how she’d looked, small and still against the blood-soaked sheets, and her eyes slipping shut despite Doc’s warnings. But he was too tired to argue, and even if he couldn’t convince himself that it was as easy as her promise suggested, the alternative was more than he was willing to deal with after recent events. He didn't think he could.

Pulling her closer, he was mindful of her healing stitches and his own weight as he wrapped his arm around her, her body once again familiar but different, with their unborn child no longer between them. But he knew her—knew the tiny shape of her against his own larger one; knew every delicate line and limb, the way she slept and moved and breathed, and her presence, stronger now than it had been earlier, and like the feel of her, it was what anchored the last of his persisting fears.

"Doc is going to throw me out if he sees I've crawled into bed with you," Shanks said then, voice slurring a bit. He was falling asleep, unhindered for the first time in days, as though his body was finally remembering how.

Makino hummed a tired laugh. He felt the sound of it in his chest, and let it be what pushed him the rest of the way under, along with the assurance offered by the grip of her small arms around him, and her voice when she murmured, and with more cheek than he could have managed in his current state—

"He can try."

 

—

 

They named him _Ace._ A curious choice in the eyes of some, maybe, but it was a name that intersected their fates, remembering an old captain long gone, and a young boy, freckled cheeks flushed pink and frown firmly in place, patience worn thin under her tutelage but his stubbornness made of harder stuff, refusing to bend, here as surely anywhere.

And it was a name that held a cold winter evening, breaths fogging with laughter above the fire and greetings exchanged at long last; Roger’s memory in so many of his manners, but more than anything, he'd been his own person, wholly and truly and without regrets. And maybe that's why they thought it would be a good legacy, a good name — not to live up to but just to _live,_  when there was no greater act of defiance in a world like theirs.

 

—

 

She'd always prided herself on having an enduring heart, of not flinching at a little waiting, but recovering from the birth of their child would pose even a challenge for her unwavering patience.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Makino paused, raising her gaze at the carefully level voice to find Shanks in the doorway, brows lifted in question and expression fondly accusing. In the sling around his chest lay their son, wrapped and dozing gently.

Halfway off the mattress, she ignored the look he was giving her, and pushed a huff past her clenched teeth. “I was just going to check on the bar.”

“The guys have it covered.”

“But—”

“They’re doing a pretty good job, too,” he continued, before she could protest. “Although Yasopp doesn’t look half as good as you do in that apron.”

His playful assurances did little to ease the sharp edges off the restlessness that had taken root, after several days of forced bed rest. “Shanks—”

“Bed,” he said, tone leaving no room for any further protests, and a shiver danced along her spine at the sound of it. She rarely heard him give orders outside of—well, _intimate_ settings, and it was with a mortified blush climbing up her throat that Makino discovered it prompted the same kind of reaction in her now.

Swallowing, she glared back. “No.”

“ _Bed_. Now.”

Ignoring how flushed she must look, Makino tried to lift herself off the mattress again, but he was quick—impressively so, given the baby tucked against his chest _—_ and before she could get anywhere his hand was on her shoulder, easing her back down.

“My girl,” Shanks said, the familiar endearment holding a patient sigh. “And here I thought I was the terrible patient.” His brow slanted downwards with a frown, before she felt the touch of his fingers to her forehead. “You’re burning up,” he murmured, and she heard the concern in his voice even before he added, “Maybe I should get Doc—”

“No!”

He blinked, taken aback, and Makino avoided his eyes. “No, that’s—ah, not necessary. It’s not a fever.”

When she sneaked a glance at him it was to find his brows furrowed, the serious expression so at odds with how he looked, his shirt loose and with the sling snug around his chest, their son sleeping soundly, and she felt her cheeks warm even further. And when realisation kindled behind his gaze she looked at the ceiling before she could catch the delighted grin that followed.

“Well, now,” Shanks mused, the low purr holding familiar amusement, and something far more intimate. “Susceptible to captain’s orders, are we?”

“Don’t mock,” she said, the look on his face not helping matters in the least. “You’re not the one who has to deal with lingering pregnancy hormones.”

“I love your pregnancy hormones,” he countered. “We’ve become well-acquainted over the past few months.”

The look she gave him told him she didn’t find it nearly as amusing, but it was difficult to keep from smiling when he met her look with so much undiluted adoration.

Then, his expression softening, “In all fairness though, why the hurry?”

Sinking back against the pillows, Makino sighed. “It’s been four days. I’m not used to doing—well, _nothing.”_

His look was sympathetic. “Doc said your stitches still need to heal before he’s comfortable letting you walk about. If it wasn't for that, I'd be all too happy to captain you a bit.”

She wanted to protest, to say that they were healing just _fine_ , but she could still feel the lingering throb of pain whenever she tried to move. And she knew it wasn’t just Doc who’d prefer she took it easy; she could see it on Shanks’ face, writ in the harder lines sitting beneath his usual, smiling features.

She’d scared him, she knew that, and it was a difficult thing to wrap her mind around; her easy-going husband who took everything in stride, shaken to the core. She was usually the one who worried, but she could see it in his eyes now that he wasn’t being strict just because Doc had told him to be, and knew her stubbornness couldn’t be helping matters.

Something entered his expression then, and, “Here,” he said, shifting in his seat so she could take the baby, and helping her settle him against her breast. That tiny weight was still such a new thing, and for a moment her attention was claimed by that little face, creased with sleep.

Shanks rose from the bed, the mattress lifting, and Makino looked up to see him walk across the bedroom to her bookcase, reaching out to run his fingers along the many stacks, the ease of the movements born from a keen familiarity with the titles and where they were found. And watching him, she found herself arrested by the sight — even before he turned back, a knowing look on his face as he made for the nightstand on her side of the bed, to tug the drawer open.

"Aha," he said, retrieving the book; the one where she kept his vivre card. And she doubted he knew that, but found herself holding the words back, wanting suddenly to see him discover it for himself, as she'd now caught onto where he was going.

“Remember when I lost my arm?” he was asking then, as he moved around to his side of the bed. Ace was still asleep, snug against her breast, and didn’t stir as Shanks settled down beside her, stretching his legs out across the mattress.

“How could I forget?” Makino countered, as she eased back against his chest. He was warm, and she felt her sigh as it shuddered out. “You almost died.”

She felt his laughter against her back, the deep sound softer than usual, no doubt to keep from waking their son. “A minor detail, but of course that's what you remember best," he said, breezily. "I was actually thinking of when you read to me.”

“You mean when I read to your unconscious, snoring weight? You barely made it past the first chapter.”

“A good thing that didn’t stop you,” he quipped.

A smile touching her lips, Makino inclined her head to look at him. Having dug out his reading glasses, they sat perched on his nose now, the sight distracting her momentarily from her words, and she saw his eyes gleaming behind the wired frames, pleased by her reaction — and her inability to hide it, no doubt. And it wasn't something he flaunted around the crew, but with her he'd never demonstrated any self-conscious need to hide them, at least not beyond the occasional, exaggerated lament that he was getting old.

“That's the book,” she said then, dragging her eyes away from his face.

He held it up, and she traced the familiar engravings on the cover. “Aye.” And she could practically hear the smile in his voice when he asked, “So what do you say, my exceedingly stubborn wife? I know you probably know this thing by heart—”

“I don’t mind,” she said, the words off her tongue before she could even think about them, and when she turned her head to look at him now there was a curious expression on his face. It was one that made her remember, suddenly, all the years that had passed since they were last in this situation — when she’d been little more than a girl, new to her own heart, but willing to bet it despite the poor odds.

And she couldn’t have imagined then, sitting at his bedside while he slept off his fever, counting the hours and listening to any changes to his breathing, suddenly and desperately afraid of losing something she'd just realised she wanted more than anything, that this was where their paths would take them; a marriage that defied distance and several seas, and a son too perfect to fathom.

Makino felt her earlier restlessness relenting a bit at the thought, easing into something comfortable as she allowed herself to sink back against his chest. Patience had always been a particular virtue of hers, and she rooted her heart in it now; Shanks' solid warmth at her back and their son's at her breast, smaller, but no less significant.

But before Shanks could open his mouth to read the first sentence, “Is Yasopp really wearing my apron?” she asked.

She felt his grin where he tucked it against her hair. “In his defence, it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen him wear.”

“You’re one to talk, Shanks.”

“Hey,” he laughed. “ _Ouch_. Also, careful now, or I’ll be wearing it next.” Then, his voice dropping an octave, “And _only_ that.”

The laugh that tumbled from her was so startled she clapped a hand over her mouth, but Ace didn’t wake, and she slapped Shanks’ leg in playful indignation, and felt his own rumbling laugh follow suit.

“Settle down,” he chided. “I’m trying to read here.”

And there might have been a teasing quip at the tip of her tongue, but she only shook her head, and closed her eyes to the sound of his voice, the familiar cadence as it wrapped around words she’d memorised by heart years ago, and made them entirely new.

 

—

 

“I call dibs next.”

“It’s a baby, not a toy—you can’t just call dibs.”

“Wait, then how are we deciding who gets to hold him?”

“I thought we’d just pass him around.”

“Yeah but you’ve been holding him for ten minutes. Can’t I hold him next?”

“Wait your turn, man.”

“I _am._ That’s why I called dibs!”

“And like I said, _you can’t call dibs on a baby_.”

“Then how come Ben always gets to hold him first? What did he do to get bumped to the top of the list?”

“Ben’s the godfather, you dolt. Of course he has dibs.”

“See, now you’re saying it too!”

“Okay, but would you gentlemen please stop calling dibs on my son?”

The remark had the heads in the room turning, although it really was hard, Shanks found, plastering a serious expression on his face while taking in the sight of a roomful of fierce-looking pirates squabbling over a baby.

The one currently holding Ace looked ready to fight. “Hey, I just got him! Boss can go hold a bag of flour or something if he needs it.”

There was a murmur of agreement around the room, and Shanks caught Makino’s laugh, and the sympathetic touch to his arm.

“I’m two seconds away from yelling mutiny,” Shanks muttered. “Fatherly mutiny.”

“Hmm,” his wife hummed softly, although the smile she gave him was more amused than genuinely sympathetic. “And what a terrible mutiny it is, all this affection for our son. Quite the usurping.”

“You joke, but don’t think I haven’t caught onto that fact that you’ve been stealthily poaching the loyalties of my crew over the years.”

The grin she shot him was entirely too innocent, and therefore all the more devious. “I don’t think I’m the one you need to worry about,” she mused, giving his arm another pat, before a wail cleaved through the room.

“I think that’s my cue,” Makino said, moving past Shanks to lift the squalling baby from the arms holding it towards her.

“I swear it wasn’t me!”

“Idiot. He’s just hungry,” Ben said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” someone agreed. “Makes about as much fuss as Boss does when he’s hungry, too.”

“Hey!” Shanks called, only to be met with a chorus of laughter, and he could only shake his head as Makino moved back to take a seat at one of the tables. And he watched with fascination her small-but-certain movements, wondering idly if he’d ever tire of the sight, or if he’d ever stop being amazed at the expressions shifting across that tiny face, so earnest in its every feeling.

A lull followed, broken only by his son’s small noises. Then, with the chatter returning to normal, although the noise level a few notches below what it normally was, a voice rose above the talk—

“Dibs when he stops crying.”

 

—

 

The first eight weeks of his son’s life went by far too quickly for Shanks’ liking.

He’d once told Mihawk that time seemed to move differently on the Grand Line, but he’d never been as aware of it as he was now, watching the minute changes taking place, manifesting in a focused gaze and small, wordless noises, and realising there would be more — an infinite number of little things and firsts that he would be missing out on when they left.

They were stalling and they all knew it, although the others weren’t really helping matters, Shanks mused. His wasn't a restless crew and never had been, but there was something different about the complacency that had marked the past few months; an easy sort of peace that was all too dangerous, because it made you forget that there was a world beyond the quiet shores and the soft Fuschia sunset.

Shanks never forgot, not really, but then that was his burden to bear. Fatherhood had changed a lot, but with regard to duty it had only solidified what he'd already known — that he had something to do yet, and it rested a heavier weight on his shoulders now, with a family at stake.

Their bedroom sat, suffused in that same calm he always found when he was home for longer stretches of time, the cry of the seagulls beyond the window the only disturbance save the soft coos coming from his son, sprawled on his back in the middle of the bed. Makino had gone downstairs to check on the bar, entirely at ease with leaving him alone with the baby — not much of a marvel for any other father, Shanks suspected, but with his lone arm there were several things that were more difficult than they would have been, if he’d had two.

But he’d adjusted, as best he could — had learned to know that little shape and how it fit into the curve of his arm; had learned how to pick him up without disturbing him too much, and that he liked to be rocked to sleep. And there’d been more than one sleepless night with just the two of them, spent walking the length of Party's common room in vain attempts at soothing ear-splitting cries, but it was a rare and gentle peace he found now, watching his son, quiet and observant where he lay on the mattress.

Touching his fingertips to the baby’s stomach, Shanks rested his hand across it, so big compared to that little shape, and he marvelled silently at how small he still was at two months. Tiny and warm and living, his little heart beating, and he’d seen his share of amazing sights in this world but they all seemed to pale in comparison, seeming unimportant next to that new little life; a part of him that now lived and breathed, and that would grow and become a person, wholly unique unto himself.

Ace smiled then — a toothless, happy little thing that prompted Shanks' own, and when he wiggled his hand and that gummy smile widened there wasn’t a worry in the world that could have mattered one smidgen of a bit.

He was startled out of his near mesmerised distraction by a familiar, delighted laugh, and glanced up to find Makino in the doorway, smile adoring and expression shamelessly amused. “I imagine it would be a terrible blow to your reputation as a fearsome Emperor if word should get out that you make the most adorable faces at your son.”

Shanks grinned, but the curl of his mouth held a wry edge. “That reputation is shot to hell already, I think. You should see some of the people I’m competing with.”

He watched something flicker across her expression, but she was quick to cover it up with a smile — quicker than he was to realise that she had seen; Teach’s face in the newspaper, among others.

 _Shanks, you idiot._ The imprint of the good-humoured remark sat suddenly sour on his tongue. And she must have picked up on it, because with her next breath she'd pushed away from the doorway to come closer.

Her small shape seeking his, Shanks felt as she came to stand beside him where he was seated on the bed, her hip fitting itself against his side, and he traced the curve of it with his fingertips, bunching them in her skirt. Her own reached up, combing his hair back to sigh a kiss to his brow, and easing some of the weight off it.

“Kids grow up fast,” Shanks said then, sorely tempted to close his eyes at her tender ministrations, but curiously unwilling to look away from their son. “I still look at Luffy’s wanted poster and think ‘that can’t be him, he’s too old’. He was barely tall enough to reach my hip when I left, and now...”

He allowed the words to sit in the quiet, unspoken. And Makino said nothing to that, although he had the distinct impression she understood, but, “Shanks,” she said, with that almost unbearable gentleness, although he was surprised to hear a firm note creeping into her tone. “It won’t be that long until you see him again. You know that, right?”

He looked for a reassuring smile but all he found was a grimace, and he didn't bother trying to cover it up; she'd see right through it, for one, and he didn't want to lie to her. But he also didn’t want to tell her they had no way of guaranteeing that. Hell, he didn’t even want to consider the possibility, except that it sat there, a strangely cynical thought for his usual, relentless optimism.

But he couldn’t help it when he looked at his son; a baby now, with all his new gestures and movements and sounds, ever-shifting, and what kind of difference would a few short months make in that little life? A year? What would he do if he returned, only to find that the baby who'd smiled at him just a moment ago had grown up without him?

“I’ll tell him,” Makino said then, and Shanks looked up to meet her eyes, surprised at the intensity he found in them. And it took him a moment to piece together the reason behind her words, and the fact that she'd caught onto what he'd been thinking.

“He’ll know who you are,” she continued, smoothing her hand over his hair. “If you can’t make it back right away, for whatever reason, I’ll make sure he knows, if—if it takes that long."

She didn't mention the one thing they both knew could be the only reason to keep him away that long, or permanently, and Shanks was glad of it. He often invoked death's name in jest, but that particular gallows' humour felt suddenly beyond him.

"I’ll tell him," Makino said instead. "Everything.”

Despite the topic of conversation, Shanks' smile came without effort. “Everything?”

“Every last, undignified detail.”

He spluttered, “Excuse me— _undignified_?”

“Your penchant for getting into trouble, and for blatant exaggeration of fact,” Makino said, smile widening as she ticked off the points with her fingers, each delicate fingertip pressed to his lips where he gaped at her. “How you can’t dress with the weather, or sleep without taking up the entire bed.”

“What—”

“The fact that you’re supposedly one of the greatest pirates of this age—”

“ _Supposedly_?”

“—and yet all I ever hear you talk about is camping."

“And how,” she said then, claiming his gaze, and whatever remark had been on the tip of his tongue was lost at the sight of the look on her face, at once terribly soft and hard-wrought with familiar determination, “when he was very new and small, you’d sit for hours and watch him with this ridiculous smile on your face.”

She touched her thumb to the corner of his mouth, not smiling now, and her voice sounded thick when she added, “But most importantly, whatever happens, he'll know that he’s incredibly lucky to have you for a father.”

It was a feat finding his voice, and there were no cheeky rebuttals to make now as her words sank into the quiet between them, fitting themselves into the grooves of uncertainty left by their approaching departure, aided by the gentle cadence of her voice, the soft lilt seeming almost at odds with the determination sitting in their speaking. But then she’d always shown the most strength and surety in her gentleness.

Her yelp when he pulled her into his lap was a laughing one, and he wrapped his arm around her back, until she was close enough that he could feel the sound of it, like he'd felt his son's heartbeat. Reminders, both of them, not of what he had to lose (never that, because his losses would be too great to bear, even in his imagination), but of what he had to come back to.

And in that moment, with Makino's weight against him and the memory of Ace’s toothless grin, Shanks rooted the certainty of his importance in the little things he’d spent the past few weeks both learning and re-learning — that guileless, happy smile that would know his face again one day, and the one he felt curving against his mouth now, which already knew every part of him, every scar and every truth, the ugly and the undignified, and still hadn't changed one bit.

 

—

 

For all that they’d had plenty of practice, leaving and waiting in equal measure and counted with miles of sea, months and years, somehow their departure this time was harder than he’d ever imagined it could be.

But, “Find me an island,” Makino said, standing on the Fuschia docks, the scene a familiar one but made new with the weight of his son’s sleeping shape in the crook of his arm, and the determination that sat etched into the delicate lines of her face.

“On the Grand Line,” she continued. “When your part in this story is finally over, find me an island I’ve never heard of on the edge of the world.” Her smile widened then, and there was a promise there — a different kind of promise than the one she’d made him, weeks ago now. _I’m not going anywhere_ , she’d said then, but this was different. These were fighting words, and ones she stood by with the whole of her being, Shanks could see.

And for all that she carried no weapon and sailed under no jolly roger, she’d never looked more like a pirate than she did in that moment, dark eyes gleaming and her grin stretching wide across her face—

“And I’ll make it ours.”

 

— 

 

Her husband had been gone a month when a strange boat pulled into Fuschia Port, although the warning she got was little more than a terrified shriek before an even stranger man was striding into her tavern, bedecked in a ridiculously pompous hat and with an enormous sword strapped to his back.

He stopped just beyond the doorway, golden eyes sweeping across the interior of her tavern, and for a single moment Makino was too busy gaping to even feel afraid.

Then those eyes came to settle on her, and she felt an involuntary shiver shoot up her back. But before she’d had the chance to so much as open her mouth, Ace gave a small, happy shriek from his bassinet, sitting in the corner.

She’d planted herself in front of it before those eyes had had time to leave her, and before she’d had time to think the action through, painfully aware that she had precious little to offer in a fight, but marvelling slightly at the certainty that sat in her muscles, taut with tension as she stared up at the forebodingly tall man in her doorway, who looked to have dragged all the shadows in the room with him.

“Out of curiosity,” he said then, face entirely impassive, and in a deep baritone that expertly toed the border between amusement and careful indifference. “Would you call that decision foolhardy or courageous?”

His fingers hadn’t so much as twitched towards his sword, but the words were offered like a challenge, and in a way that made Makino feel like he might as well have suggested they duel.

But, “It doesn’t matter which it is,” she said at length, shoulders relaxing a bit from their tense clench. For some reason she didn’t think he meant her harm, although she didn’t move out of the way. “The decision remains the same.”

He considered her where she stood, sharp eyes sweeping across her once, not as though he was sizing up an opponent, but as though he was looking for something — some sign or cue that Makino couldn’t have hoped to guess at.

“Dracule Mihawk,” he introduced himself then, but without a single excessive flourish, which seemed odd to Makino. Given the hat, she’d expected a little more…flair. “I am acquainted with your husband.”

She perked up at that, finally recognising the name — the man Shanks called Hawk-Eyes.

 _The title is certainly…fitting._ She blinked then, his words registering fully, and she tilted her head curiously. “He told me you were friends.”

He didn't miss a beat. “Acquaintances.”

“Is it common for you to check up on the spouses of all your acquaintances?”

His expression didn’t so much as twitch, but she had the distinct feeling that he was amused. Not overtly, like Ben, but amused nonetheless.

“I came to see for myself,” he said then, although he didn’t specify what. “To satisfy my curiosity.”

Having determined that he wasn’t there for any nefarious reasons, Makino felt herself relax in truth, although his presence hinted at a power that didn’t allow for being taken lightly. Still, Shanks had never once referred to the man with anything but respect, and so, “You must have been very curious,” Makino mused, emboldened by the thought, “to come all the way to this corner of the East Blue.”

He didn’t answer that, but given the sparsity of his speech, she doubted he would.

“Would you like a drink, Mihawk-san?” she asked, already moving towards the bar, leaving the path to the bassinet open, and the suggestion of trust clear.

He considered her closely, a single brow raised, and there was no doubt that he’d picked up on the significance of the gesture. Although what he thought about it, now that was a whole other matter.

“Are you inviting me as a friend of your husband’s, or an acquaintance?” he asked.

Makino smiled; the smile Shanks often said was ‘too openly scheming for its own good’. “I promise I won’t tell him if you accept the first one.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

Her smile only widened at that. “Then I’ll tell him you put up a fight at the suggestion of friendship.”

“That is acceptable.”

He took a seat, once more with a strange economy of movement — a deliberateness to every gesture and every action that seemed at odds with his state of dress. But when she inquired and he politely asked for wine, she found she wasn’t all that surprised, and poured him a glass without question, leaving him by the bar to check on Ace.

On his back with his arms above his head, her son was the most earnest sleeper she’d seen since Luffy, and the sight never failed to make her smile, touching gentle fingers to the soft peach fuzz that dusted his crown. Not her colouring, that, and she could feel her grin widening, wondering how long before it darkened.

Walking back to the bar, she found those eerie golden eyes watching, and making no effort to hide it. And even though she couldn’t read his expression, she wasn’t surprised that when he did speak, it was to offer something painfully blunt.

“You should be careful,” Mihawk said, without wasting time fleshing out the specifics. “I suspect he has already notified you of the dangers.”

Her smile felt suddenly awkward, as though she’d swallowed something sour. “In less ominous words.” Although—that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Shanks had never looked quite as grave as when he’d told her what she had to look out for. And she’d had enough of Garp’s lectures in her life to have reached her quota and had long since learned to tune it all out, but she remembered that — the look on his face more than anything else.

“I am prepared,” she said, the smile dropping. The same thing she’d said to Ben twelve years ago, but she hadn’t known then — not as she did now. “I might not look like much to you, but I’ll protect my son with my life. I don’t need to wield a sword to make that promise.”

He looked at her then, and if she’d thought his gaze was assessing before it was nothing compared to the scrutiny he subjected her to now, as though he was peeling away all her layers, although Makino had always been told she had a heart too honest to hide anything.

“What?” she asked, and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest — a meagre form of protection from a gaze as cutting as that, and there wasn’t any doubt now how this man had earned his moniker.

A barest quirk of the lip was her answer. Then, “Consider my curiosity sated.”

She felt her brows lift. “Just like that?”

A snort, or barely that. It was too elegant for a proper snort. “I have often questioned his judgement, but not in this.”

“That…sounded almost like a compliment?”

Something strange passed over his face then, and she had the distinct feeling of not being privy to some joke. “I will refrain from commenting on your judgement in this case,” Mihawk said instead, the remark exceedingly dry, before he lifted his glass coolly to his lips.

Despite herself, Makino laughed, suddenly happy that Shanks had companions like this, scattered across the seas. Someone who’d wholeheartedly deny the suggestion of friendship, but who, after just a few minutes in his presence, she felt like she could trust with her life. Or perhaps even more importantly, the life of her son.

“So,” she asked then, leaning her weight on the bar-top. And now it was her turn to consider him — to offer her own scrutiny. She’d been a barmaid for over twelve years, and she’d seen her share of strange customers. It usually didn’t take her long to work her way past their defences. “I’ll let you drink for free if you tell me how you first met my husband.”

He arched a brow at that. “You are not afraid it will ruin the image you have of him? I know he tends to embellish his own version of events.”

Makino grinned at that, and thought of her husband across the seas. There was a small hollow in her life left by his absence, but she always found things to fill it — Ace’s gummy smiles, and the little things Shanks had left; small mementos of his presence found in the shirt that hung over the back of the chair in their bedroom, and the slight dip in her mattress that hadn’t been there before.

And she knew bits and pieces of his life before they’d met, but like with her books, she wasn’t picky — she’d take whatever she could get her hands on, and let her imagination do the rest.

“Oh, Mihawk-san. Not in the _least_.”

 

—

 

A sneeze cut through the quiet, startling a gull perched on the mast above his head.

“Someone talking smack about you, Boss?”

Shanks attempted to wipe his nose discreetly on his shirtsleeve. “I resent that assumption. It could be someone lauding my character.”

“Someone who doesn’t know you, then?” Yasopp asked, leaning against the railing.

“Must be, if they’re lauding him,” Ben agreed. “What’s more likely is that there’s a rookie somewhere who’s made it their purpose in life to take you down.”

Yasopp grinned. “In which case, I doubt they’re saying nice things about you, Cap.”

“I’ll live,” Shanks drawled.

“You can’t really blame them for underestimating you, though,” Yasopp agreed. “If I was a rookie I’d take my chances with the cripple over Big Mom any day.”

“ _Cripple—_ ”

“Hey, what happened to the last brat who showed up to challenge you?” Yasopp asked, before Shanks could finish voicing his protest.

“He’s in the galley assisting the chef,” Ben said around his cigarette. “Had a change of heart. And careers.”

“Most of them do,” Shanks mused.

Yasopp blinked. “Wait, was that the guy who pissed his pants?”

“No, that one’s apprenticed to the navigator. Had a knack for charting stars.” Ben tossed Shanks a look at that. “Sometimes I wonder if you do it for fun. Sadistic behaviour, for a new father.”

“Hmm? I don’t know what you’re implying, Benny.”

“Last time you let your _haki_ loose on the rookies to set an example the one guy who didn’t pass out on the spot keeled over at the sight of his crew. It was a little extreme, even for you.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that kid. Isn’t he a deck-hand now?”

“Just got bumped up the ranks. Exemplary behaviour, although Makino complained we weren’t feeding him enough.”

“She wouldn’t have said that if she’d actually seen him eat,” Yasopp remarked, with a shake of his head. “Teenagers. All they do is eat.”

“ _You_ have a teenager, you realise,” Shanks pointed out.

“Speaking of,” Ben cut in. “You read the paper yet?”

“About Dressrosa?” Despite himself, a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Leave it to Luffy to attract trouble like a living magnet. “The kid’s got nerve. I don't think even I was that bold when we first came here.”

“It’s either that, or bad luck,” Ben mused. “Although knowing him, I place my bets on nerve.” Then to Shanks, dryly, "And you were that bold. You've just elected to forget."

“This is going to cause ripples,” Yasopp said, before Shanks could comment on Ben's accusation of selective memory. “And not the good sort. We prepared for what’s coming?”

He didn’t say _war_ , but Shanks heard it regardless, in every steady push and pull of the sea against his ship. The horizon was quiet, few clouds in sight and no islands for miles, but in spite of it all, he couldn’t help the thought that something was stirring in the waters beyond.

 _Ripples_ , he mused, and allowed his thoughts to wander to his family — to the wife that he still woke reaching for, and the son he hadn't seen in months. And he thought of East Blue, sitting in its quiet corner of the world, untouched by the changing tides that he felt so keenly with every shift and tilt of his ship beneath him.

Heart suddenly heavy in his chest, like a stone dropped in once-quiet waters, Shanks wondered how long until that changed.

 

—

 

There was a strange man in her tavern.

Makino busied herself with polishing a glass for the second time, stealing surreptitious glances towards the figure seated at the end of the bar, seemingly enraptured with the bottom of his glass, although she had the unmistakable impression of being observed.

He wasn’t a common sailor, or a marine, and she’d had twelve years now of categorising her customers to be certain enough to draw that conclusion. And he wasn’t like Shanks’ friend Mihawk, who, for all that he’d given every impression of being dangerous, hadn’t made her react like this — like the man seated at her bar now did, despite there being no weapons or dramatic feathered hats in sight.

Of course, she’d long since learned her lesson not to judge a pirate by appearance alone.

There was a stack of wanted posters in the back room, but she didn’t dare leave to look through them — didn’t want to alert him to the fact that she had suspicions, when he’d done nothing to warrant that kind of reaction. He’d been perfectly cordial, had ordered his drink and hadn’t made any advances, or even attempted to start a conversation beyond a muttered word of thanks when she’d brought over his order.

She remembered Mihawk’s warning, sitting heavy and foreboding in her mind now, and she tried to ease her grip on the glass in her hands. Ace lay sleeping in his bassinet, entirely unassuming, but she felt so keenly the little presence tempting her eyes away from the glass cradled between fingers she hoped weren’t shaking too noticeably.

She tried telling herself she had no reason to worry, even if the man were to catch sight of the bassinet. Plenty of people had red hair; it wasn’t all that uncommon a colour. And she had no reason to assume that every stranger who walked through her doors would take one look at her son and all jump to the same conclusion.

Ace gave a small shriek then — an adorably happy sound that was usually accompanied by kicking his feet, and Makino felt her grip tighten on the glass.

“Cute kid,” the man said then, gaze sliding towards the bassinet.

A cold sweat had broken out across her back, but, “Thank you,” Makino managed, and hoped her smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. She'd never been able to lie with ease. Or lie, period.

“Old?”

She allowed her smile to soften, but not enough to drop completely. “Almost eight months.”

A thoughtful hum, as though with understanding. “Grow up fast, don’t they?”

Makino tried to keep her expression blank. _Maybe he has a child himself. Maybe he’s just reminiscing. A lot of people don’t see their children when they’re out at sea for months._

He glanced at her wedding ring then, and she resisted the urge to pull her hand back and out of sight. “You run this place by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Husband out at sea?”

She scrambled to keep her expression from changing, grasping for that practised mask of careful diffidence familiar to all proprietors forced to deal with customers on a regular basis. Well—most proprietors. Emiko had never suffered prying questions of any sort, although they were far from uncommon, and Makino had had twelve years of answering similar inquiries: _why hasn’t a sweet girl like you settled down? Place like this must get lonely all by yourself. No kids, either?_

This wasn’t any different, she told herself. “He is.”

Another thoughtful hum. “Common arrangement, that. These days, anyway.”

Makino didn’t answer that, but kept her smile in place and her hands out of sight, her wedding ring suddenly heavy on her finger, and she’d never felt more alone than in that moment, her son sleeping soundly and her husband miles away.

“Thank you for the drink,” the man said then, when the sun had dipped low beyond the windows, shafts of fool's gold thrown across the floorboards, broken only by the occasional shadow of a chair. And with a nod of farewell he’d adjusted his cloak on his shoulders and walked out, the bat-wing doors swinging in his wake, the familiar sound suddenly painfully loud in her ears.

Forcing her breath through her nose, Makino allowed her shoulders to relax, uncomfortably aware of the presence that lingered, akin to how Shanks’ presence sometimes felt palpable, but where that just tended to leave her dizzy, this felt distinctly like a layer of oil over water — not harmful, but _cloying._ And if nothing else had convinced her that he was just any other stranger passing through, the impression that remained in his wake left no room for doubt.

When she’d gathered herself and was certain he wasn’t coming back, she put the glass down and made for the bassinet, drawn by the sounds — her son’s small coos that never failed to make her smile, although she couldn't make herself relax enough for her delight to sit with ease on her face.

“Hey,” she murmured, kneeling by the bassinet to rub her thumb along the curve of a round cheek, shoulders easing out of their tension a bit when she received a gummy smile and a gurgle in return. “You’ve had a long nap.”

Lifting him, she nuzzled her nose to his cheek, drawing some strength from the familiar weight in her arms, and the little noises she’d learned and memorised. “How about we go stay with Dadan tonight, hmm? Would you like that?” Then to herself, “I know mama would like that.”

She didn’t bother cleaning up, and left the dirty glasses in the sink and the chairs where they stood as she made for the door. It was a bit of a walk to Dadan’s, but there was a restlessness in her bones after having been confined to the bar all day with the stranger, and as she stepped out past the doors and onto the porch, the caress of the sea-breeze a familiar balm, Makino felt she could have walked the whole length of the island if she’d set her mind to it.

But, her curiosity getting the better of her, she walked towards the slope curving down to the wharf, and took a moment to survey the docks. Except there wasn’t a ship that she didn’t recognise, and even if that should have settled her heart somewhat, all she felt was that growing sense of unease.

“Ah, Ma-chan! And little Ace. Out for a walk?”

The kind voice reached through her worries, drawing her out of her thoughts to find a familiar face. Twelve years hadn't seen old Amaji much changed, and Makino remembered suddenly a conversation they’d had, an early morning when she’d come to the docks looking for an entirely different ship.

She attempted what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m heading to Dadan’s for the night.”

Bushy grey brows furrowed above kind eyes, startlingly sharp despite the years on his back. “A little late for a walk through the forest,” he said, and she knew by his tone that he’d caught onto the fact that something was wrong.

Then, noticing the direction of her gaze, “That stranger took off a little while ago," he said.

She thought she might have felt relief upon hearing it confirmed, but something about his expression kept it at bay. “He’s gone?”

“Mm.” His gaze did a quick sweep of her, before coming to rest on Ace, cooing softly in her arms. “Something off about that fellow, if you ask me.”

The fist-sized lump that sat in her chest dropped lower. “Oh?”

“Was awfully curious. Asked all sorts of questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

He met her eyes then, and instead of answering, “I think it might be a good idea to stay at Dadan’s tonight.”

Makino swallowed. And instead of repeating her earlier question, said, “I think you might be right.”

The old fisherman nodded, and then — “Hold on a moment while I put this away, and I’ll walk you.” Holding up his basket of fish for explanation, he started off down the street, and Makino remained where she was, looking out towards the quiet wharf, sitting pretty under the setting sun. Ace’s head was a gentle weight against her shoulder, and she felt the fragile little life beating steadily behind that tiny ribcage, pressed to her own.

“I don’t think we can stay here much longer,” Makino said then, quietly, and to whoever was listening — her son, with his small noises and gestures, too young to understand the world that existed beyond his mother’s embrace.

Or maybe the sea, who offered her silent agreement in the gentle but portentous lap of her waves against the docks, telling of ill winds and storms beyond the horizon.

 

—

 

She planned, after that — made arrangements, and inquired with Dadan of departing ships, and the safest route across the island if the need arose. Precautions, small and fruitless, maybe, but she couldn’t just sit on her hands and hope for the best.

She often thought of calling Shanks, but didn't know what to tell him — felt foolish when she considered her sudden unease, all due to a single visitor who hadn't shown his face since. And even if there was a part of her (a selfish, lonely, _scared_  part that Makino didn't allow herself to think about too much) that just wanted to hear his voice, and so much that it had almost gotten to the point where common sense lost all semblance of meaning, and where it took all her willpower to not just throw caution to the wind and make the call, she shoved the temptation down and focused on those small, fruitless plans.

Of course, as it was, she didn’t get the chance to put any of them into action, when another visitor saw fit to show up in her doorway one quiet afternoon.

Dadan looked up from her newspaper. She’d taken to coming around more often, after Makino had showed up on her doorstep one night with Ace in her arms and her heart in her throat. Now she was scrutinising the new arrival with the same kind of bluster that had last seen Garp sprawling in the dirt outside of Party’s.

 _Pirate_ , and Makino knew it from the moment she laid eyes on him, the low sun glinting off his round glasses, shielding his eyes momentarily from view. Still, there was something different about him — that much was obvious from the very first look he offered her, kind eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Can I help you?” Makino asked warily, but took care to keep her smile in place.

She knew he must have caught the edge of wariness in her voice, but instead of taking offence, only offered her a smile of his own. And it was a warm smile — the kind of smile that made her think of Shanks. “You must be Makino," he said.

At that, Dadan put her newspaper down, and subjected him to a decidedly unimpressed once-over. But Makino saw the tension in her brow, and the clench of her hands told a different story. “And just who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“You may call me Ray,” the stranger said amicably, entirely unperturbed by her thinly veiled hostility. There was a clever glint in his eyes as he added, “Or Rayleigh, if you prefer.”

Makino’s eyes shot open at that. “Rayleigh?”

“Yes.”

“As in _Silvers_ Rayleigh?”

Dadan choked at that, and Makino could only gape. For his part, Rayleigh only laughed. “I see my reputation precedes me. That wouldn’t be your husband’s doing, would it?”

Mouth snapping shut, Makino tried to wrangle her thoughts back into something resembling order. “It might.”

He shook his head at that, his expression a tinge exasperated, but noticeably fond. “I won’t ask just what kind of stories he's been telling, although something tells me you know him well enough to realise he has a penchant for blatant exaggeration.”

Makino’s smile quirked. “I do that. And don’t worry, Rayleigh-san. I’m quite capable of making my own judgements.”

At that, his eyes curved. “Ah, but from what I’ve heard, you’ve got quite the imagination. Although I suppose it’s the better alternative to whatever it is he’s told you. For the record, it’s safe to assume that most of what he says stretches the limits of probability.”

“He said you strung him up by the ankles over the side of the ship once,” Makino said, “because he couldn’t settle a dispute with one of the other deck-hands.”

That made him laugh — a deep but uproarious sort of laugh that was also staggeringly reminiscent of her husband. “He told you that, did he?” But he seemed distinctly pleased by the fact, and Makino felt her shoulders relax.

“Charming story. Now why the hell are you here?” Dadan was asking then. “It’s a long way to come just for a chat.” She tossed Makino a look. “Not that it stopped that weirdo who came by a few weeks back. What was his name—Hawk-Nose?”

“Hawk-Eyes,” Makino supplied.

“Right. That guy.”

“I’m here because Shanks asked a favour,” Rayleigh said. “And because I have a soft spot for that kid.” His eyes met Makino’s then, his expression turning serious. “Although from the look of you, I think you’ve already guessed why I’m here.”

“What’s all this commotion?” spoke a voice from the doorway then, and all the eyes in the room turned to the mayor, taking in the sight before him with furrowed brows. “You’re a new face,” he said to Rayleigh. Then, brows furrowing even further, “You a pirate?”

Rayleigh smiled. “I’m merely a humble old man, seeking to fulfil a request.”

Woop Slap peered up at him, mouth pressed in a tight line. “You here to get Makino?”

Makino was about to protest when Rayleigh nodded, and before she could speak up, Woop Slap let slip a grunt of affirmation. “Good. As far away as you can take her. This island isn't safe anymore. Not for her, anyhow.”

Makino blinked. “Wait, what—”

“Can you guarantee it?” Dadan asked, drawing Rayleigh’s attention. “That they’ll be safe, both of ‘em?”

“I give you my word,” Rayleigh said. “Whatever the word of a pirate means in these parts.”

Dadan just looked at him. “Depends on the pirate.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate your concern,” Makino spoke up then, making them look at her. “But it would be nice to be included in these plans you’re making. Seeing as it concerns me.” Then, to Rayleigh, “Where exactly would you be taking us?”

She already had a feeling what his answer would be, but she still needed to hear it in order to wrap her mind around the fact, although when he asked her, “Ever wanted to see the Grand Line, Makino-san?” Makino suspected that the near-hysteric laugh that threatened to escape her wouldn’t be the most graceful response.

The Grand Line. Closer to Shanks, but at the same time, closer to all the dangers she’d only ever heard and read about. She'd never wanted to see that sea — not without Shanks, at least. She'd asked him to find her an island, but she'd always thought that if she ever left Fuschia, it would be his ship taking her away.

But she remembered the stranger with all his questions, and the restlessness that had taken root in her heart in the weeks that had followed his visit, making her feel trapped in a place that had used to feel safe. There was no guarantee that Fuschia would stay the same for long, and she had more than just herself to think about.

“No,” she said, honestly, and with enough force that the word left an impression. And Rayleigh showed no reaction other than that same, patient smile, although Makino had the sense that he was pleased by the answer, the corner of his mouth quirking when she added, chin raised, “But I’ll go with you.”

Dadan was in front of her then, large hands gripping her shoulders. “You keep that little boy out of trouble,” she said. Her voice sounded even rougher than usual, but there were no tears in her eyes, although Makino wondered how much strength it took, as her hard expression wavered, “And you keep yourself safe, you hear? Ain’t many of my brats left, and I don’t have the heart to grieve another one.”

Her throat closed up, as the full realisation of what leaving would entail dawned on her — the fact that she wouldn't just be going away, she would be leaving for _good_. The only home she'd ever known, and all the people in it who'd helped make it that. “Dadan—”

“You _swear_ ,” Dadan cut her off. “You swear you’ll stay safe, Makino, or so help me I will give you a pounding that’d put your old Mistress to shame.”

There were tears pressing against her eyes now, but she didn't let them fall. She had to be stronger than that if she wanted to make it on that sea — she had to be _strong_ , for her son if nothing else. “I swear.”

Dadan’s smile trembled, but she nodded, fierce features pulling into a smile that was the first, genuine thing Makino had seen since Ace's execution.

Then, her grip tightening on Makino's shoulders, Dadan's expression was suddenly a terrifying thing—

“And you inform that pirate husband of yours when you see him that if he gets himself killed in this goddamn war, I’m coming for him in the afterlife!”

 

—

 

Their voyage to the Grand Line was exactly what she’d expected.

Unfortunately.

Never having set foot off the Fuschia docks, the fact that her first voyage should be beyond the East Blue was adventurous enough, but that it should take her all the way to the Grand Line, and to an island she’d only ever read about in the newspapers, was bordering on being more than Makino could handle.

Ace seemed to be having none of her troubles, cheerful despite the ever-shifting weather, and the fact that his mother had spent the better part of the voyage puking her guts out. She regretted laughing at Shanks’ stories now, and spared a passing thought to how he’d have found her reacting to the seafaring life — with laughter of his own, no doubt, and curled on her side belowdecks with her son tucked against her chest, she’d never missed the sound of it more.

Rayleigh was courteous and endlessly patient, taking Ace off her hands when she needed the rest, and more than happy to supply her with stories when she wasn’t busy throwing up.

“You know,” he said one evening, after a lull in their conversation. Ace sat dozing in his arms, red hair an endearing mess and a small droplet of spittle making its way down his chin. “I remember a young man who once told me he’d left his heart in the East Blue.”

Curled up on the bunk, Makino considered the ceiling of the cabin, a smile tugging at her mouth despite the persistent grip of nausea. “Shanks told you that?”

“Mm. Has a penchant for dramatics, doesn’t he?”

Her laugh fell, an achingly tired sound. “He does.” She wondered where he was now, and what he was doing. Rayleigh had confessed to having no knowledge of what the Red-Hair Pirates were up to, and Makino hadn’t pushed for news. But she searched every paper for clues, even as she dreaded what she might find; a paradox of wilful ignorance and an acute desire for information, even just the barest mention of his name in passing.

“I’m glad,” Rayleigh said then, and when she opened her eyes it was to find him considering Ace, that small head tilted back, and drool gathering on his shirt. His smile was an old, curiously fond thing. “That I shouldn’t need to see history repeat itself. There seems to be enough of that these days.”

Makino knew what he had to be referring to, and so she didn’t say anything, and kept the words tucked under her tongue — the question she didn’t voice, but that remembered a picture in the paper, over two decades old now. A grinning face atop an execution platform, and Garp, striding into her old Mistress’ tavern with a baby in the crook of his arm.

She watched her son sleeping, and felt the dancing tilt of the ship beneath her, accompanied by the singing creak of the timbers. And for the first time in a long time she prayed — to whoever cared to listen, that when all was said and done the sea would settle once more, and she would see her husband again with the new tide, whatever else it brought.

But new tides and new eras notwithstanding, more than anything else, she prayed that Rayleigh was right.

 

—

 

They made only a few stops on their way out of East Blue, enough for Makino to stretch her legs, and to catch the occasional glimpse of remote seaside ports and far-off islands. After that it was a short lifetime before she felt solid ground under her feet again, and she could have kissed it for the simple fact that it didn’t lurch beneath her.

“We’ll make a stop here for a little while so you can adjust,” Rayleigh said, and there was part of her that wanted to protest the implied suggestion of going back out to sea — the part that was still rattled from the voyage so far, and the relief of being on land again. It felt distinctly like she’d been wrung inside out.

Still, it wouldn’t do her any favours remaining in the dark, especially here, so far away from what she knew. “And then?” Makino asked.

He smiled; that curious smile that somehow managed to be both sympathetic and amused at the same time. “And then I’m going to find you somewhere safe, to sit out the coming storm."

She remembered the morning paper, and the ominous headlines. Emperors clashing. The Revolutionary Army. _Blackbeard_. “Is there such a thing?”

His hum was a contemplative sound, holding more knowledge of the sea than Makino thought she wanted him to share, but, “That depends on your definition of ‘safe’," Rayleigh said at length. "Few places in the New World would fit the common man’s interpretation.” His look softened then, as he turned towards her. “I’m old, Makino-san, and this fight is for the younger generation. And there’ll be enough fighting to go around.”

She fought against the nausea that roiled in her stomach, and not because of the sea this time. But she still appreciated his candour; the fact that he wasn't trying to coddle her, by shielding her from the truth. “What will you do, then?”

His smile turned strange at that, and he flicked his gaze towards where Ace wiggled in her arms, wide eyes trying to take in every sight at once. “I’m here to make sure the next generation survives," he told her.

“Come on,” he said then, touching his hand to her elbow. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

He brought her across the strange island — a great grove of trees with their roots buried in the sea, and strange bubbles rising from the grass, to drift towards the canopy. The air was thick and supple with heat, clinging to her skin and her clothes, and Makino was too busy openly gaping to bother much about the fact that she was displaying all her feelings so plainly, and that it was attracting more than a few stares.

It was like a setting right out of one of her favourite novels — a fantastic scenery the likes of which she’d only ever read about, and which was a far cry from the quiet seaside port she’d spent her whole life in. Was the whole Grand Line made up of islands like this?

“Here we are,” Rayleigh announced as he came to a stop, dragging Makino’s eyes away from the towering trees and towards a house, and the sign cheerfully proclaiming the place as _Shakky’s Rip-Off Bar._

“She’ll like you, my wife will,” Rayleigh said then, dark eyes gleaming behind his glasses. “A woman after her own heart, what with you being a barmaid. Granted, Shakky charges more than you, but then that’s true of most of the taverns this side of the Red Line.”

At Makino's dubious look, he laughed — the hearty, carefree mirth of a man who'd claimed peace for himself with his own two hands; a pirate's defiance, hard to shake even from old, tired bones. “Come on in.”

Silently, Makino tucked her son close, feeling his small heartbeat and the little hands tugging at her hair, and wondered not for the first time since leaving Fuschia — since the day she'd stood on a ship under the setting sun, flowers in her hair and sake cups exchanged with so much laughter she'd spilled most of it, and her new husband's kisses stealing the rest — just what kind of world it was she'd accepted as her own.

 

—

 

As it turned out, the closest to safe they could manage was a small island off the coast of absolutely nowhere, a little gem of green in an endless sea of blue that Makino latched her eyes onto long before Rayleigh’s sloop pulled into port. Although at that point she didn’t much care what it looked like so long that it had solid ground to stand on, still reeling from the last leg of their voyage, most of which had been spent travelling below the sea, not above it.

 _Mermaids_ , she thought with a shake of her head, smoothing a hand over Ace’s hair, and receiving a string of incoherent babble in return. Fishman Island was days behind them now, but it would take longer yet, Makino suspected, to shake the memory of looking out into the endless dark of the ocean depths, separated only by a laughably thin film of protection.

 _Well_ , she mused, as Rayleigh set about anchoring the sloop to the wharf, before helping her onto the docks. At least she’d have stories of her own to share when she saw Shanks again.

She raised her eyes to take in the little town nestled by the seaside. It was a strange little place, and she’d deduced that much from the moment she'd walked off the wharf, Rayleigh at her side and her son in her arms, only to find wary-but-curious faces greeting them from every window and open doorway. There was a smattering of market stalls lining the cobbled road curving up from the wharf, and every vendor and customer had paused to take in their arrival.

And for a single moment she felt _small_  — small and new in this strange world that she’d entered into, and even more than she’d felt, standing on deck at the bottom of the sea and gazing out into the dark vastness of the New World.

The inhabitants were whispering among themselves; Makino saw their gazes going to the baby in her arms, and sought to latch her own eyes onto something, searching the tight-knit rows of houses crawling further into the little town, seeking anything that would be even the slightest bit familiar, on an island she didn't know with people she'd never met.

A pale stone building with a green-tinged copper roof caught her eye, wedged so tightly between two others it looked at once out of place and like it had been made to fit. It held the local tavern, she surmised quickly.  _The Red Lion_ , a rendition of its namesake rearing across the stained glass door above which the sign was mounted, and something about the name made her pause, even before she lifted her eyes and noticed the black flag whipping the breeze, attached to one of the townhouse spires, a familiar emblem of a skull and crossed swords, and three red scars she'd know anywhere.

Her breath caught, but before she could scramble for a response, Rayleigh was introducing himself — was introducing Makino, and at the mention of _Red-Haired Shanks_ they perked up, before coming out of their doorways to greet her, delight and laughter offered in place of their earlier wariness.

"You're her," someone said, an old woman peering up at Makino through her glasses, her smile partially toothless. "I was wondering when we'd finally get to meet you."

"Oh she's lovely," someone else murmured; Makino caught it where it slipped under the growing din, as more people gathered around them, some craning their necks, as though to get a better look.

"Of course she is! The Captain said she was."

"But what a surprise!" someone else exclaimed with a laugh, drawing her attention back before it could attach itself to the casual mention of _Captain_. "We weren't expecting you so soon."

Makino blinked. "Expecting?"

She got more than one grin for that, and when she looked to Rayleigh, found his own to be warmly knowing. "Your reputation preceding you is not my doing," he told her, flicking his eyes to the flag mounted above the tavern.

Before she could even wrap her head around the implication _—_ that old promise kept; the island she'd asked for on the edge of the world _—_ there were more voices competing for her attention, and the reception was such an earnestly _welcoming_ thing, she had no words to offer in return, as she was ushered into someone’s parlour with the promise of food.

"We've all heard about you," they told her, as they related stories that dated back ten years, enthusiastically shared by the pirate whose benefaction included frequent and popular visits. _The girl from East Blue_ , they called her, and had known her by name long before Rayleigh's introduction. They'd been expecting her, they said; Shanks' last visit had brought the news of their marriage and their son, along with the promise he'd given her, and they'd been anticipating her arrival ever since.

There was none of the careful reservation of Fuschia's inhabitants in their manners, their earlier suspicions forgotten, replaced with a good-humoured spirit that made Makino think of Shanks, and the pang of longing that followed was enough to leave her short of breath.

And at the heels of the journey she’d had, it was a lot to digest in such a short time, and she was wondering idly how much more she could take when Rayleigh calmly nudged her away from still-curious townspeople and continuous offers of food, down a curving footpath and towards a little house at the bottom of a sloping valley, sitting pretty like it had been awaiting their arrival.

Taking in the sight, the new timber and the fresh coat of paint, and remembering the fondness with which the townspeople had spoken of Shanks, the clever twinkle in their eyes and their delight upon finally meeting her, Makino wondered if it wasn't the case.

And watching the house where it waited, she felt suddenly all the long months that had passed since they'd said their good-byes on the Fuschia docks, and wondered how long it would be until she saw him again.

She didn’t allow herself to consider the 'if', ever-threatening at the back of her mind _—_  couldn’t, because she’d come so far and if she thought about that now, it might be what finally broke her.

But, “Ray-san,” she said quietly, shifting her hold on Ace, who’d fallen asleep in her arms, the crown of his head tucked under her chin.

“Hm?”

“Do you think he’ll live through this?” she asked, the question that had sat on her tongue since the day the papers had first announced the beginning of the war. She’d seen none of it, only headlines and speculations, but as she felt Ace’s weight in her arms, honest with exhaustion and not a worry in that little heart, she’d never been happier for that ignorance.

“I knew a man once,” Rayleigh said, drawing Makino’s eyes away from the house, “who said he wouldn’t die.” His smile turned suddenly strange, and in a musing tone he added, “I’m still not sure if he kept his promise.”

She huffed a laugh. “I can't tell if that’s supposed to be reassuring.”

He shrugged his shoulders, as though he’d long since let go of the burden that she felt weighing down on hers, and, “It depends on how much power you give death,” he told her simply. Although catching her look, his expression eased into something gentler. “Care for your son, Makino,” he said. “Make a home. It’s all anyone can ask for, on a sea like this.”

But then he grinned, and she thought she saw a hundred different lives in that smile. “But let me tell you that I’ve known Shanks a long time,” he said, the look on his face caught somewhere between exasperated and achingly wistful—

“And no man who’s worn that straw hat has ever greeted death lightly.”

 

—

 

“Didn’t Doc put you on bed rest?”

Glancing up from what he’d been looking at, Shanks found Ben, one brow arched and his arms crossed over his chest. “Was that what he said? I thought it was ‘Boss, you’re the best’, and I couldn’t really disagree with that, so I didn’t.”

Ben shook his head. “Idiot. How’s the fever?”

“Better. _Oh—_ is that why he ordered the bed rest?”

“That might have something to do with it.”

Shanks grinned, but he felt the ache when he looked for it. The stitches had been taken out, but it would be time yet before he stopped feeling its constant presence.

Ben offered a knowing glance to the vivre card in his hand then. “I told you she’d be fine.”

Shanks said nothing to that, but considered the sheaf of paper, still impeccable — not so much as a single tear, only the faded letters of Rayleigh’s note. It had been a lifeline through the last grip of the war; a reminder that however torn the world under his feet, it hadn’t reached her yet, and wouldn’t if Shanks had anything to say about it.

Of course, that determination had made him a little reckless, the result of which still sat, an entirely different sort of reminder perilously close to his heart.

Remembering the book sitting on the desk in his quarters, he tried not to wince. The vivre card he’d given her over a year ago looked— well, worse than Shanks currently did, but it was a solid testament to the events of the last battle, and he’d never been so glad as when he’d dug it out of the drawer of her nightstand in Fuschia and realised she’d forgotten to take it with her.

There was only a small corner left, the edges torn and stained black, but he’d left it where it was, tucked between the pages of the book he’d given her years ago. There was a story there now, and one that was easier to digest with his survival as fact. She'd scold him for being reckless no doubt, but he'd happily take her anger over her grief any day. He didn’t like to linger on the thought of how she would have reacted if she’d seen it disintegrate before her eyes.

“You’re a loud thinker,” Ben said, lighting a cigarette.

“What, now a man can’t contemplate his mortality on his own ship?”

“What is there to contemplate? You’re alive.”

Hand to his heart, Shanks sighed. “A small miracle with the way you all treat me.”

“And yet no one’s usurped you.”

“Ha,” he laughed. “ _Yet_. And don’t think I haven’t seen you consider it.”

“Your wife does feed the crew,” Ben mused. “Which is more than you do. And your kid is cute.” The corner of his mouth lifting, he added, “Which is more than you are.”

“The _cruelty_.”

“You can spend your retirement reminiscing it fondly.”

Shanks muttered under his breath, “Why do I have a feeling you’ll be making regular visits to remind me?”

A shrug. “I am your kid’s godfather,” Ben said. “I have some responsibility that he turns out alright.” Then, sliding Shanks a long, considering look, his smile widened suddenly.

“What?” Shanks asked warily.

Ben’s grin was decidedly pleased, but he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I will pester you until you tell me, you know that right?”

An exhale then, and when he looked at him next his expression held such a self-satisfied smirk, Shanks was almost afraid of what was coming—

“You have a cluster of grey hairs,” Ben declared then, pointing towards Shanks’ hairline. “Right there.” Then he gave him a slap on the back, and turned to stride towards the galley.

_“What?!”_

Ben’s laughter drifted back, the loudest Shanks had ever heard it, but it was difficult keeping his own contained now, with the sea stretching out before him, their course steady and their destination set.

And for once, with his wife's unblemished vivre card in his hand and his heart light in his chest, there wasn’t a sliver of doubt in his mind of what awaited him beyond the horizon.

 

—

 

“So, do you like it?”

The question was asked in a quiet lull, following at the heels of a story that had left Makino strangely contemplative, and silent where she’d curled herself against him, his own back against the tree.

The little house sat at the bottom of the valley below, a single point of light amidst a host of shadows and the draping weight of the trees surrounding it. Most of the crew had taken up residence within — at least, those who weren’t still at the tavern. And with a house full of willing babysitters they’d sought a moment to themselves at the top of the rise overlooking the horizon, a dark stretch of sea and sky cluttered with stars.

She’d been resting her head on his shoulder, and lifted it now to look at him. “What?”

“The island." He grinned. "I promised you one of those, didn’t I? Or was that something else? Shit, did I get it mixed up—did I actually promise you something that _sounded_ like island?”

She shook her head, but a reluctant smile curved along her mouth, and it eased some of the tension from his shoulders. It had been a long voyage, and an even longer year; and it was still a feat coming to terms with the fact that he was here — that the war was over, and that he was alive perhaps most of all.

Her hum was a thoughtful sound, and Shanks felt the light brush of her fingertips over his collar, hesitant in a way she hadn't been since she was twenty, and he was brought back rather vividly to a sunny day twelve years earlier, except her tentative curiosity this time held an edge it hadn't, back then.

“And here I thought you were referring to your new scar,” she said, and he felt the press of her palm over his heart, just below the path of the scar in question.

“I could be, if you’re very impressed,” Shanks said, watching her eyes track the jagged length of it where it cleaved across his collar; a deep gouge, nearly three fingers wide and spanning the length of his chest, from rib to opposite shoulder. Teach’s parting shot — a vicious, eye-catching reminder of a battle nearly lost. It had been weeks, and yet he still couldn’t shake the memory of the blood soaking into his shirt, his vision bleeding dark at the edges, and the almost detached realisation that _this is it._

“I’m surprised this didn’t kill you,” Makino said then, her honesty stark and unavoidable, and nowhere near as hesitant as her touch. And they hadn’t gotten to this part of the story yet. He’d told her all the good things first — about Yasopp finally meeting his son, and Mihawk’s deadpan but honest admission that Shanks had somehow managed to do something right in his life.

But, “Yeah,” Shanks said now, quietly. “Me too.” And when she looked at him, her eyes full of questions, he felt a wry smile tug at his mouth, and, “Luffy,” he said by way of explanation, remembering the final blow that had never reached its mark, and opening his eyes to see Roger’s hat and thinking for a moment of complete disorientation and blood loss that it was his old captain, back from the dead.

And he remembered the battle only in bits and pieces—Teach’s laughter, and the darkness descending on him—but that part he remembered in full, useless fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword but no strength to lift it, and Luffy, back straight and both feet planted firmly, standing in the middle of Blackbeard’s path.

He smiled then, and in an attempt at lightening the mood, “Would you believe he had the cheek to tell me to sit back and relax?” He shook his head, but he still felt that swell of gratitude, remembering. “Like I wasn’t busy bleeding to death in the dirt. I swear, kids these days…”

Makino’s look hadn’t changed, and Shanks’ grin softened. “I owe him a lot.”

Her fingers curled around his, her grip fierce and the corner of her mouth lifting. “A good legacy, that one.”

“Hmm. Shame I can’t take credit for it.”

“I can think of someone who’d disagree.”

“Yeah, but Garp’s been looking for reasons not to like me since day one.”

She smacked his shoulder fondly. “I was referring to  _Luffy,_ you insufferable man.”

He laughed, but didn’t disagree now that she’d said it. Instead what he said was, “Admit it. You’ve missed your insufferable man.”

Makino met his gaze squarely, and, “Every day,” she said, not missing a beat, and even after all their years, a marriage and a child, Shanks still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that they’d made it this far. He still remembered the day they first met, a small lifetime ago now; two vastly different people who might well have gone their different ways, but who'd found in each other a future.

“So,” he said then, casting a glance across the ocean view. From this angle, with the sea dark and quiet, it wasn't unlike the view from Fuschia. Except they both knew what these depths held, although looking at her now, and the contentment that had come to settle on her face, it was difficult connecting it to the memory of the sheltered girl who'd once told him in no uncertain terms that she'd stick to the adventures in her books, and nothing more.

Now she'd sailed the same seas he had, and seen the same sights — which reminded him that he wasn't the only one with stories that needed telling.

"So?" Makino asked, and Shanks blinked, before he realised that he'd gotten lost in thought.

His grin was sheepish, but his curiosity earnest when he asked again, “The island?”

That made her smile, he was glad to see, and some of the shadows lifted off her face. “Does it feel like ours yet?” he asked.

She tilted her head, her smile turning soft with meaning. “It’s starting to.”

“Give it some time,” Shanks said, lifting his hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. She wore it loose, freed of her kerchief. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Recognising the words as her own, Makino’s smile widened. “Is that a promise, Captain?”

Shanks grinned, remembering the sun setting beyond the Fuschia docks, and flowers in her hair. “My heart,” he said, flicking her nose fondly—

“That’s a _vow.”_  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit (as of June 2018): I changed the name of their bar in the New World, to better go with the lion imagery Oda associates with Shanks. 'The Red Dragon' was originally a nod to Red Force, but I like this better.


	3. third verse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware copious accounts of shameless domesticity, flirty marrieds, and a long-enduring happiness.

It wasn’t long after his own return that they had their first visitor.

Well, not so much a visitor as a blatant trespasser, but knowing Luffy, Shanks figured he should have expected as much.

He stirred before the first step across their threshold, the familiar presence asserting itself cheerfully, and without a mind for the fact that it was the middle of the night.

“We need locks on our doors,” Shanks murmured, nose tucked against soft skin, half buried in her hair.

He felt Makino shifting, and the soft sigh that followed, wrapping her voice thick with sleep. “What?”

A kiss to her bare shoulder, “Locks,” Shanks emphasised as he pulled away, a quiet murmur of discontent chasing the movement, and the release of his arm.

She hadn’t opened her eyes, and he suspected she was well on her way back to sleep when she asked, the words barely coherent, “Where are you going?”

He heard from her breathing that she was already gone, and smiled as he hunted down a pair of pants, before making for the door.

The house was dark, but he knew his way around with his eyes closed, and he was rubbing sleep from them as he sought out the kitchen, meandering between open doorways and side-stepping the odd, rogue building block with an ease that came from practice — and lessons hard-learned, meaning he’d fallen on his ass enough times to know to tread with care. A pitching deck under a volatile sea had less mercy for the unwary than a two-year-old.

Stopping in the doorway to the kitchen, Shanks regarded the open fridge, and the straw hat resting against the back turned towards him.

Head popping up from where he’d had it shoved halfway into the fridge, “Hey!” Luffy greeted around a mouthful of leftovers. The toddler on his arm seemed curiously at ease with the situation. “Sanji won’t let me in the fridge on the ship.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

Luffy only grinned. Ace made a grab for the straw hat, without success. “He was awake,” Luffy explained, as though to answer Shanks’ unasked question.

Shanks rubbed at his eyes. “With the amount of noise you made coming in, I’m not surprised.”

“I’ll put him back later.”

Shanks looked at the fridge, one brow quirking. “And the food?”

“Er—”

Reaching for the straw hat again, Ace let loose a string of excited babble, and Luffy laughed, seeming delighted by the attention. Shanks smothered a yawn with his hand.

“Just don’t eat my kid, Anchor,” he said, before he turned to make his way back to the bedroom, side-stepping the building block again. From the kitchen, Ace’s babble drifted back, to which Luffy made a noise, as though in understanding, laughter muffled by another mouthful of food.

The mattress of their bed welcomed him back, and he was on his way to sleep in moments, fingers seeking the small shape who’d rolled over onto his side, and she moved with him, shifting until she’d tucked her head under his chin, her cheek pressed to his chest.

Shanks felt her sigh, a heavy contentment in the sound as she curled herself closer. “Was he being difficult?”

He hid his smile against her hair. “Which one?”

“What do you mean ‘which one’?” Makino murmured, but she didn’t lift her head to look at him. Sleep softened her confusion into a yawn, “We only have one son.”

“If you say so.”

“What?”

He tugged her closer. “Nothing.”

She didn’t question him further, and he felt her breathing evening out. He couldn’t hear anything from the kitchen, but he could feel the presence — that too-bright, laughing aura that had no mind for the dark, or the hour.

“Oh, yeah,” Shanks said, a yawn pressed to the crown of her head. “Our fridge is going to be empty tomorrow.”

 

—

 

As it turned out, their fridge had been refilled overnight, although Shanks didn’t know if he felt better about waking up to find yet another kid in his kitchen —  _cooking_ this time.

“Yo,” the blond from Luffy’s crew said, without turning around. Sanji, Shanks remembered vaguely, from their brief meeting during the war. He had his back turned, busy at the stove, one of Makino’s aprons tied over his pressed black suit.

All things considered, it wasn’t the oddest sight he’d woken up to.

“Hey,” Shanks said from the doorway, tone amused but wary. Ace sat on his arm, talking, some semi-coherent words slipping through the chaos of non-coherent excitement. A tug at his hair followed, as though for emphasis, and Shanks gave him a bounce. “Either you’re in the wrong kitchen, or you’re the weirdest burglar I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few.”

Sanji glanced over his shoulder, flashing a grin. He had a toothpick balanced between his teeth. “Ah, yeah—sorry about that. I heard Luffy got to the fridge, so I thought I’d make breakfast as compensation.”

“This wouldn’t be a common thing for your crew, would it?”

He got a laugh for that. “Something like that.”

Shanks watched him for a moment, then shrugged, and went to take a seat at the table. He was hungry, and it did smell really nice. He didn’t ask where his captain was, or the rest of his crew, assuming they were somewhere in the near vicinity, or still at the ship.

Part of him didn’t want to know what trouble they might be stirring up. At least not before coffee.

“You’re Zeff’s boy,” Shanks said after a moment, settling Ace in his lap.

That had him turning, one curly brow lifting in surprise. “You know my old man?”

Shanks smiled. “We old amputees stick together. There’s a mailing list.” Ace tugged at his shirt, and he ruffled his hair. “We stopped by your restaurant once, but you probably don’t remember. It was...fourteen years ago? God, that makes me feel old.”

“Small world,” Sanji mused, as he turned back to his chopping. Something was sizzling in the pan, and Shanks was momentarily distracted by the smell. “I was probably busy in the kitchen. Old fart would have me peeling potatoes until I could barely hold a knife straight.”

“Looks like it paid off,” Shanks said, and got a pleased grin for that. The rhythmic sound of the knife on the cutting board filled the quiet, a curiously lulling sound, and he had to blink so as not to doze off in his seat.

It really was a godforsaken hour, but it had been his turn to get up with Ace, although he spared a fleeting thought to his warm bed, and his warmer wife, still asleep.

The sun had started to sift through the kitchen window, the stained blue-and-yellow glass at the top throwing shifting colours on the far wall. It was one of the bigger rooms in their home — a bit too big for just the three of them, the wide, oakwood table seating twice as many with ease.

Ace was craning his head, little hand raised to the ceiling beams, wrapped with strings of herbs hung to dry. Shanks gave his hair another ruffle.

He turned his eyes back to Luffy’s cook, who’d moved onto whisking something in a bowl. “Itching for a smoke?” he asked. At the curious look he got, he smiled. “Toothpick, twitchy fingers. I know the signs.”

Sanji shrugged. “I’m good. I figured I’d keep it under wraps, what with your kid.”

“Manners, huh?” Shanks asked. “How about that.”

As though on cue, a rolling thunder of footsteps sounded on the porch outside, and, “Sanji!” came the shrill call, bouncing between the walls, before Luffy appeared in the kitchen doorway at a run. “Is it time for breakfast yet?”

“Didn’t you just eat?” Shanks asked. “I literally caught you raiding my fridge a few hours ago.”

“Oh, please,” Luffy’s navigator said, nudging him aside as she stepped inside the kitchen. “He was hungry already by the time he got back to the ship.” She looked at Shanks. “Sorry about that.”

Shanks would have waved her off if he’d had an extra hand to spare. “Your cook is making up for it, and I’m so tired I couldn’t have held a spatula if I tried, so all’s well.”

Luffy dropped down into one of the empty chairs, startling the toddler in Shanks’ lap, before that little grin stretched, in turn with the one regarding him from across the table. And the boy hadn’t said a word, but Luffy only nodded, as though some unspoken pact had been struck, in a silent language that went over Shanks’ head.

He really needed that cup of coffee.

“Where’s Makino?” Luffy asked then. “She’s always up early.”

“She’s also the mother of a two-year old,” Shanks pointed out, fingers seeking Ace’s stomach, and luring a giggling laugh into the air. “Even early birds know to take advantage.”

As though in answer, Ace tilted his head back. “Mam?”

“He’s very sweet,” the dark haired woman seated across the table said. She appeared to be Makino’s age. The rest of Luffy’s crew had trickled in at his heels, and had filled up their kitchen, every chair claimed, along with the bench along the wall. Shanks was surprised the noise level hadn’t roused Makino yet.

The thought made him long for the bed he’d left, and he took a moment to consider the likelihood that he might get half an hour of shuteye before breakfast if either of them felt inclined to entertain Ace, but before he could ask, Makino appeared in the doorway.

Rubbing at her eyes, she blinked at the sight of her kitchen. She was still in her nightdress, a thin dressing robe slung about her shoulders. She’d forgone tying it closed, and given the fact that the sheer fabric beneath hid next to nothing, Shanks realised belatedly that he might have given her a warning.

As it was, she seemed too distracted to realise. “What,” she said, and barely had time to get the word out before the cook who’d been previously whisking eggs had fallen over himself at her feet, clutching at one of her hands.

“ _What beauty blesses the morning~_!”

Half the people in the room groaned, but Makino only blinked, staring at her hand, cradled like a token. Her admirer looked ready to burst into another exaltation of praise, but stopped when a shadow fell across him where he’d prostrated himself on the floor.

Shanks loomed over him, Ace on his hip now. “Hey,” he said. “Want to join that mailing list of amputees? No? Then get your hand off my wife.”

“Seriously, Sanji-kun,” the navigator huffed, moving over to physically drag him off, hissing under her breath, “He used to be an Emperor!”

“Used to be,” Shanks muttered under his breath, with a glance at Makino, who still seemed to be having trouble catching up. But before he could explain, Luffy beat him to the punch.

“Ma-chan!” He was out of his seat, headed straight for a hug, which she accepted with some surprise, startled the rest of the way out of sleep by the wiry arms shoving all the air out of her lungs, and her exclamation was a laughing wheeze as she lifted her arms to return the embrace.

“ _Luffy_?”

Shanks caught her startled look from over Luffy’s shoulder. “Apparently, we’re a youth hostel now,” he said. He spared a glance at the shipwright seated at the table, and the woman at his side, both looking closer to their ages than the rest of Luffy’s crew.

His gaze lingered a moment longer on the skeleton seated on the far end of the table.

He decided against asking. “Well,” he said instead. “Youth-ish.”

Having gathered herself enough to respond, Makino laughed, and drawing back to get a better look at him, “Look at you!” she exclaimed, touching his cheeks. “You’re all skin and bones. Are you eating right?”

Another round of groans from across the room, followed by Luffy’s loud demand for Sanji to get off the floor and finish cooking breakfast, and Shanks could only shake his head.

“Yeah,” he told his son, dark eyes wide and taking in the commotion in silent rapture. “So much for the peace and quiet of retired life.”

 

—

 

“It’s nice here,” Luffy said later, sitting on their porch, the afternoon sun beginning its languid descent towards the sea beyond the rise.

Ace sat dozing in his lap, thumb tucked in his mouth and his breaths heavy. Quick to trust, but then Luffy had that effect.

“It is,” Shanks agreed, inclining his head to the house at their backs, and the noise sifting out between the shutters, pulled closed to shield against the sun.

And with the muffled conversation and the cool shade, it was easy to remember a different porch, on a different island; hard-packed dirt under the open sky, and windmills turning lazily in the heat, green fields sprawling at their feet.

There were no windmills here, and the sight from beneath the white latticework of the awning showed only the well-trod footpath and the low-hanging branches of the trees. The white flowers were beginning to yield, scattering the grass with petals. A wilder greenery than Fuschia had boasted.

He wondered if she missed it, sometimes. Her old home.

“Do you miss being a pirate?” Luffy asked then, and Shanks blinked, caught off guard by the question.

Luffy wasn’t looking at him, but the sleeping toddler in his lap, a small, delighted smile taking in the wet trail of drool making its way down his chin.

Shanks watched them both, and tried to bridge the wide gap of years, back to a crowded bar, and a little boy scrambling to stay atop the seat of his barstool, listening to the stories he’d told with much of the same rapture he showed now.

Now that kid was a grown man, a king among pirates, and Shanks’ son wasn’t yet old enough to be asking for stories. But there was something about the sight that had an old feeling knotting together in his gut.

Maybe he was just getting old.

Smile wry, “I’ll always be a pirate,” Shanks said, looking down the footpath towards the swelling rise in the distance. They couldn’t see the sea from their house, but it sat on the air, a faint reminder of salt carried on the breeze. “Saltwater runs in my blood. Well— that, and liquor.” He winked. “It’s why I married a barmaid.”

Luffy laughed. “Really?”

“Don’t tell her. She’d never serve me again.”

Luffy only grinned. “You’re so full of shit, Shanks.”

“Yeah,” Shanks laughed. “So I’ve been told.”

“But you’re happy?”

He didn’t have to look to find the answer to that. “I am.”

Nodding to himself, Luffy seemed to be weighing his words. A rare occurrence, Shanks thought, for a man who usually shot from the hip.

Then, “You don’t miss the sea?” he asked, quietly.

Shanks looked towards the rise again. He knew the sight from the top; the twisting footpath ambling down to the little town, stretching wider, and the cluster of houses lining the road into its heart. The single pier stretching out from the wharf into the water, and the anchored ships idling, awaiting cargo and crews on shore leave.

And he didn’t have to look long for that answer, either. Because part of him did miss it. He missed the feeling of having a deck underfoot, the planks creaking where they should, and the sway and tilt of his ship, the vessel an extension of himself. He missed the feeling that the whole world lay at your feet, standing at the bow, open water and naked horizons on all sides, and sea air filling his lungs to bursting.

“Sometimes,” he said, after a lull. A small smile eased the slight edge to the word. “It comes, now and again. I’ll get the urge to set sail. It’s a different world, with sea under your feet. You never really leave it, even if you leave the sea.”

He knew that world better than most. He’d been at sea longer than he’d been anywhere else, always moving between one destination and the next. It wasn’t a world that allowed for staying in one place. The sea might not change, but the tides did, and the currents. It had been his world since he was thirteen, his homes found on different ships, in different cabins and under different sails. Of course part of him  _missed_ it.

But he thought then, of all the years he’d spent in that world, missing _her_. All the things he’d seen, sights that few people ever got to witness, and his first thought had always been to Makino, to wonder what she would have made of it.

He’d always wondered what would have happened if she’d taken him up on his offer all those years ago, to join his crew. He tried to imagine what she would have been like, as a pirate — if she still would have married him, and if they would have had children now.

He had no answer to those questions, although maybe in another world, she’d said _yes_. But even in this one, she’d chosen him. It had taken them a little longer, but he wouldn’t have traded his life now for all the oceans in the world.

“I’ve spent most of my life on the sea,” he told Luffy then. “And I think with life, if you live long enough, you’ll realise what it is you really want from it. When I was younger I wanted freedom. Piracy gave me that. Or at least, it gave me the kind of freedom I needed back then.”

He smiled, thoughts suddenly years away. “She changed things.”

“Ma-chan did?”

Shanks nodded. “Sailors often say they don’t have a choice, or that the sea doesn’t let them choose. But you always have a choice.”

He looked at his son, sleeping soundly. In the house behind them, Makino laughed, the softer chime of it easing itself under the louder mirth of the crew gathered in their kitchen.

“I chose them,” Shanks said. “And to have the option to do that, given the life I’ve lived…” He smiled. “That’s more freedom than I probably deserve.”

Luffy was looking at Ace, expression curiously pensive. Shanks wondered if he was thinking of his own father, and the choice he’d made. He didn’t know if Luffy had ever asked Dragon about it.

“Hey,” Shanks said then, making Luffy glance up. For a single second, the look on his face belonged to the boy on that barstool, not the King of Pirates. “We’re damn proud of you. Don’t be fooled thinking that wanted poster collage she keeps in the kitchen is all of it — she’s got a whole drawer full of newspaper clippings about you. Enough to make you appropriately embarrassed.”

Luffy ducked his head, grin pleased. “Yeah?”

Shanks’ smile softened. “You’ll have to look far to find someone who’s prouder than she is, Pirate King,” he said then, to Luffy’s widening grin. “Let’s see you stir the waters a bit more before you retire.” He looked at his son again. That easy trust, handed over without question.

“I know someone else who’ll be watching when you do.”

 

—

 

There were many things about her life that hadn’t gone the way Makino thought they would.

The falling-in-love-with-a-pirate part sat at the very top of the list, although she’d had years to come to terms with that. The marrying of said pirate had been another surprise — or, not so much the marriage itself as what had come with it, meaning their son, and a sudden change of locations that now saw her living out her days not in the village she’d lived her whole life, but a quiet corner of the most dangerous sea in the world.

“Morning, Makino-san!”

She barely had time to wave, the little hand tugging on hers claiming her attention, and it was all she could do to keep up when he suddenly released her fingers.

“Ace!” she called, when he made to bolt down the street, and fond laughter chased at her heels as she made to run after him.

Most dangerous sea or not, it wasn’t very different from Fuschia, in some regards.

She’d caught up with him before he’d gotten far, startling a loud laugh as she caught him around the waist, before pressing a kiss to his cheek. She caught several smiles in passing as she made to cross the street, and greetings offered, lost in the laughter filling the air and her arms both.

The tavern sat at the bottom of the cobbled street, snug at the heart of a cramped junction, the green copper roof flushed bright under the sun. Above the door, the swinging sign hung suspended, still in the windless heat.

The doorbell chiming announced their arrival, before an elated shriek followed, and the small hand holding hers released it again — “ _Daddy_!”

Shanks barely had time to put the tray down to catch the little shape hurtling across the floor towards him, winding between chairs and tables, before the collision saw him hoisted into the air with another shriek of delight, the high-pitched lilt of his laughter softened by his father’s deeper cadence.

“Aren’t you a little young to be frequenting bars?” Shanks asked, giving him a bounce. The grin he flashed Makino was teasing. “I should have a talk with your mother about what kind of example she’s setting.”

“A terrible one, clearly,” she said, pushing her braid back over her shoulder. Her kerchief was coming loose, and she pulled it out to retie it. “But then I wasn’t the one teaching him the names of different liquors when he first started talking.”

Shanks’ grin didn’t budge. Ace was quiet on his arm now, little fingers fisted in the kitchen towel over his shoulder, and Makino took a moment just to observe him. He’d only been home a few months, but it was still a feat, accepting the changes. The fact that she no longer had to carry the thought at the back of her mind, that he’d be leaving again, and counting the days without meaning to. He was home to stay now.

He was a _barkeep_ now, heaven help her. Just getting used to that was a continued exercise in trying not to smile too much.

“What?” Shanks laughed, and she blinked. “That smile either means you’re cooking up some scheme, or picturing me naked. Or both.”

She flushed, the colour climbing up her throat to rosy her cheeks, but her smile came easy. She’d had years of practice enduring his particular brand of shameless flirting. “I’d say it was the second,” she said, sidling closer, “but this is distracting enough.” She gave a tug at the apron hanging low at his hips.

The shameless grin he offered made her cheeks warm further, but he looked pleased, and the warmth spread, down her chest into her gut. He wasn’t a self-conscious man by any stretch of the imagination, but life had left marks on more than just his body, Makino knew.

There was little evidence left of the battle he’d carried home with him, save the still-pink scar bisecting his chest that he didn’t bother hiding, his shirt left mostly unbuttoned, and she tracked the path of it where it climbed up his collar and over his shoulder.

“I think you’re the one distracting me now,” Shanks said then, voice softened with a chuckle. “But I don’t think it would be good for business if we both conveniently disappeared.” He gave their son a bounce. “And then there’s this one.”

She hummed, smoothing her fingers over his hip. “And here you’re usually so eager to play hooky.”

The look in his eyes told her he was more than willing to take her up on that suggestion, before his expression brightened. “Hey, speaking of business. You’re  _late_ ,” Shanks told her, sounding delighted by the fact. “What an occasion this is. I feel like this calls for a drink.”

Makino sighed. “I could use one.” She reached up to tug at Ace’s shirt, and received a cheeky little smile in return. “Your son decided he didn’t want to wear clothes this morning.”

“I’d protest the blatant insinuation that this is somehow my fault, but that does sound like something I’d do,” Shanks laughed, ducking his head for a kiss, before grazing a smile along her ear.

It never ceased to surprise her, the ease with which he could make her smile. “Hmm,” she laughed. “I have to say it’s a little more charming when you parade around without pants.”

She felt his grin against her temple. “I’ll remind you that you said that, the next time you roll your eyes at my antics.” Then to the boy on his arm, “But I see you wrangled him into something.”

Makino noticed he very cleverly failed to mention the bright floral print. “I had to yield. It was either the flower print, or another thirty minutes spent chasing him naked around the house.” She gave him a look, and dropped her voice, “The last time we did that, I at least got something out of it.”

“ _Ma-chan_ ,” Yasopp spoke up, just as Shanks let out a roaring laugh. “There are civilised people here.”

“Oh yeah?” Shanks asked. “You’ll have to point them out to me.”

Yasopp pointed a single finger, and Makino gasped. “Yasopp! You know he mimics everything you do!”

His grin attempted to be sheepish, but didn’t quite succeed. “Sorry,” he said, and didn’t sound like it in the least. Makino cupped a sigh with her palms.

“I could still get you that drink,” Shanks told her.

She stuck her tongue out, and he laughed, giving Ace another bounce as she ducked past them to make for the storeroom.

“Did you go over the inventory list?” she asked as she came back out, a sheet of paper in hand. She lifted it, then frowned. “I can barely read this.”

“There’s your answer,” Shanks quipped. Then to the room, “I’ve got an order of one very small fish here!” he called, tossing Ace over his shoulder, and eliciting a sputtering giggle. “Lots of cheek, few manners to speak of. An unfortunate penchant for naked rollicking. Any takers?”

Several voices rose in response, and Makino rolled her eyes, but their son changed hands, and Shanks moved to pick up the empty tray he’d left.

When he arrived back at the bar, she lifted the list. “This says ‘one smoking hot wife’.”

Shanks looked at her, standing in the storeroom doorway. “And? We currently have exactly one of those in stock. Just came in, two minutes ago.”

“‘One pair of gorgeous legs, and eyes that could kill a man’?” Makino recited.

“All of it true. I swear on my honour as a pirate.”

“There’s also a really crude drawing at the bottom. Really, Shanks?”

“What can I say? You’re my greatest inspiration.”

She frowned at the paper. “What even is that position? This doesn’t look plausible.”

His grin was tellingly wolfish. “No? We could always test it.”

“Is...that supposed to be my _apron_?”

“Put to good use,” Shanks interjected. “I’m nothing if not exceptionally creative.”

“How would you even tie it like that? You only have one hand.”

The look he gave her dropped straight into her stomach. “I can tie every sailor’s knot imaginable one-handed. You know, you’re making this sound like a challenge. And you know how that usually goes. Very rarely in your favour.” He grinned, and then, voice lowered a notch, “Although if you let me do _that_ to you, I promise it would be very much in your favour.”

Makino shook her head, but couldn’t hold back her laughter. Or her blush. “You’re impossible. It’s a miracle you get anything done around here if that’s all you think about.”

“It’s called multitasking,” Shanks countered, moving closer. “I’m getting remarkably good at it.”

“Oh is that what it is?” she asked, as he reached to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’ve been hard at work then.”

The laugh that dragged from him was so loud she had to duck her head against his chest. “My lewd girl,” he marvelled. “Come in here saying things like that, there’ll be more than inventory done in that storeroom.”

She pinched his side for that. But since she couldn’t help herself, “As long as something gets done in there, you won’t hear any complaints from me.”

“Especially not if that _something_ is you, is that what you’re saying?” His grin was so wide she had a thought to wonder if he wasn’t about to suggest they sneak off, but, “I couldn’t do all the chores,” Shanks said, with a wink that promised the subject would be revisited, preferably when there were fewer customers at hand. “There’d be nothing left for you to do. And I know you love the work.”

She shook her head, but didn’t correct him. When the war had been at its worst and she’d needed to keep her hands busy, she’d taken up work at the local tavern. Just a few days a week, to start with, the retiring barkeep pleased with an extra set of hands to assist him.

But she’d felt claustrophobic in that little house with only her and Ace, and a few days a week had quickly turned into a regular, every-day thing, until she’d taken over the opening shift, and the closing one, Ace learning to fall asleep to the same sounds Makino had grown up with; creaking floorboards under heavy boots and chairs scraping over the planks, the melodic _clink_ of glasses and laughter sifting through the general din. The low hum of a sea song on someone’s breath.

Then Shanks had returned, and in lieu of having nothing else to do, had taken to helping her out, and between them they’d relieved the retiring barkeep of most of his duties, Makino taking over the administrative functions of keeping the tavern running. Although—

“It’s a usurping if I’ve ever seen one,” Shanks told her later, stepping up behind her to put a glass down on the counter, considering the blueprints over her shoulder, spread across the bar-top. The sun was idling low on the horizon, creeping through the stained glass of the front door; a rendition of a rearing lion against a blue backdrop, spilling in hues of red and blue across the floorboards. “Although Yasopp was right—adding a bigger window in that wall will give us a better view of the port.”

“More space isn’t a bad idea,” Ben agreed from where he was seated across the counter. He took the glass Shanks had put down, and cast a glance over his shoulder, to the pirates, both active and retired, who’d made room for themselves between the cramped space of the bar. Several were seated on the tables, but that didn’t seem to hinder the merriment. Or their drinking. “You’ve got a lot more regulars now.”

There was little in the way of accusation in their tones, only fond amusement, but, “Building an expansion wasn’t my idea,” Makino said, feeling defensive at the grins they were giving her. “That was Yasopp’s suggestion.”

“He said you thought it was a great idea,” Shanks said.

She pointed to the room. “They’re sitting _on_ our tables, Shanks.”

“Oh,  _our_ tables, are they? I can’t believe you’re dragging me into this. I am an innocent bystander.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Ben smiled, and wisely kept his own shut.

“Face it, my dear,” Shanks said. “You commandeered this place.”

“So I wanted to make it my own,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. And I’ve heard no complaints.”

His look warmed at that. “Given how much they all adore you here, that’s no surprise,” Shanks told her. “I don’t know if I should be upset that you’re the obvious favourite now.” He nodded to the former owner, seated at one of the tables. “Even the guy you usurped seems happy with the arrangement.”

“You say that like I stole his business,” she said.

Shanks looked to Ben. “Care to weigh in on this?”

“You usurped him,” Ben said, deadpan.

Makino gaped. “I can’t believe you’re taking his side!”

“For once in his life,” Shanks muttered under his breath.

Ben only smiled, and offered another fleeting look to the room. “How many changes have you made to this place since you took over?”

“The bookcase is new,” Shanks said, before Makino could protest the notion that she’d taken over anything. “And the curtains.” He grinned, and gestured to himself. “The staggeringly good-looking staff. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Yasopp built the new counter,” Ben pointed out, breezing right past the last comment, and Shanks’ pout.

“It needed changing,” Makino said, arms crossed over her chest.

“And the curtains?” Shanks asked.

She glared. “Look nicer than the old ones.”

“And me?”

She pursed her mouth to hide her smile. “I needed something pretty to look at while I work.”

“Ha! I _knew_ it!”

“She didn’t change the name,” Ben said then.

Shanks grinned. “Fair point.”

The look she gave him was entirely unamused. Or tried to be, anyway. “I could change it.”

He hummed. “You could name it after yourself instead.”

She tossed the dish-rag at him, and he caught it easily. “Or I could rename it so it still fits you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he laughed.

“The Rapidly Greying Lion,” she quipped, and Ben barked a laugh.

“She has a point,” he told Shanks, at the affronted look he received for that.

“Hey,” Shanks said then, drawing her eyes, and Makino realised she’d drifted off into her own thoughts. She’d been fiddling with a corner of Yasopp’s blueprints. “You know we’re just teasing, right? I don’t think anyone’s begrudging you making this place your own, least of all the guy who used to own it. He was long past the point of retiring, anyway—has been since we first stopped here, before my Emperor days. When I told him I was planning on bringing you here, he offered me the bar. Said it was a wedding gift."

At her falteringly doubtful look, he went in for the kill. "My barmaid," he said, tenderly. "You've been a long-anticipated addition to this place. The stories I've told about your work ethic are practically legends. And a bar like this should be run by someone with your particular brand of enthusiasm and heart.” His eyes gleamed, and his smile was a familiar thing of unapologetic adoration. “I happen to be intimately familiar with both. They're something to behold.”

Makino shook her head, but didn’t succeed in holding on to her defiance, and his widening grin told her he was well aware.

She looked out across the bar, the crowded tables pushed close together, and the people seated, around and atop them. The dark, sweeping floorboards beneath and the white-washed ceiling above, heavy oak beams spanning the length and width of the room. The white curtains she'd sewn herself, stirred by the sea breeze, and the heavily stacked bookcase at the end of the room, in which regulars and visitors had taken to leaving books as they passed through, a cheerful assortment collected from across the world. The fresh flowers, picked from her own garden. It was the living, thriving symbol of the home Shanks had given her; the one she'd made theirs. And she didn’t know just when it had become that, but thought it had something to do with the crew and captain returned, as comfortable between her four walls here as they had been in Fuschia.

“Any news?” she heard Shanks asking Ben, perusing the day’s paper.

“The Revolutionary Army,” Ben said. “Dragon’s second-in-command has been stirring up a lot of trouble.”

“Anything we need to worry about?”

“I’ll give my contacts in Mariejois a call,” Ben said. “Just in case.”

They continued discussing the paper, but Makino was barely paying attention, eyes on the room as she watched Ace toddle between the tables, the odd hand reaching out to ruffle his hair. Someone lifted him up to settle him on their knee, and he stayed, no less at ease with the attention than he had been as a baby.

And she felt it then—the stirring within her of what she recognised as _want_. It was an old feeling, and one she was familiar with, having spent years tending the quiet soil of her life in Fuschia, with no husband and no children.

Now she had a husband, home to stay, and a son who’d been the light of her life since the day she’d first learned he existed. And they’d talked about having more, but there’d been Blackbeard to deal with. Then that whole, terrible war, and crossing a vast sea to a strange island that had since become hers — that had been that for years, if she was to believe Shanks.

It hadn’t been the right time for it, that growing family she’d started to envision, the morning she’d first woken up beside him after ten years and thought _this is what I want._

Fingers worrying the apron over her stomach, she thought about the years they’d both spent waiting for the peace they had now, long-earned and hard-won. And maybe it was selfish of her to still want more than she had, when she had so much, but she’d spent so many years _not_ being selfish, Makino thought she’d at least earned the right to want to be that.

 

—

 

“I want to try for another one.”

Shanks lifted his gaze from the newspaper to find her in the doorway. She’d just finished putting their son to bed, and the chirping lull of the cicadas in the trees ushered in a tranquil quiet in the wake of the loud little laugh that had drifted out of the house a few minutes ago. The setting sun had crawled away from the porch, leaving a comfortable shade.

He saw how her face fell, no doubt at his prolonged silence. “You don’t want another one,” Makino said, tucking her hands into her elbows.

Shanks put the newspaper down. “That’s not it.”

The look on her face didn’t yield, and she had her arms in that tight cross he knew from when she was either bracing herself for something, or digging her heels in. From the look of her now, she was doing both.

“You almost died,” Shanks told her. “I don’t know if you remember, but I remember it pretty well. A little better than I’d like to, actually.”

Her mouth made a stubborn moue. “I remember,” she said. “But I didn’t die. And Doc said there shouldn’t be any lasting problems.”

She stepped closer, cedarwood creaking underfoot, an ever-clinging fragrance that smelled like home now, where before it had been salt and sea spray.

“We’d be careful,” Makino said, releasing the cross of her arms to reach for his hand. She settled on the arm of his chair, leaning some of her weight against his shoulder. “Now that we know there might be a risk, we’d take all the necessary precautions. We’d be prepared this time.”

Shanks felt her fingers threading through his hair, before she touched a fingertip to the wired rim of his reading glasses. “It could be a girl,” Makino said then, her smile small, and not even pretending to be anything but deliberately compelling. “You’ve always wanted a girl.”

He gave her a look, but that only made her smile widen. She had him now, but, “I _have_ a girl,” Shanks said. “I love her dearly, although her methods of coercion are entirely unfair.”

“Hmm. What coercion?”

He tilted his head, considering her where she sat. And he could imagine it easily, what a daughter of theirs might look like — little elfin features, and dark hair framing a small, cheeky smile. Trouble incarnate, if she was anything like her mother. A loud, unapologetic laugh, if she was anything like him.

But that old worry still remained, the one that had taken root the day their son had been born. He hadn’t considered it before then, the very legitimate danger that was invariably a part of the process of bringing another life into the world.

He thought about it now, with their peace bought and paid for. Their healthy son, and the life they’d built. If he lost her…

But the image wouldn’t leave him, of that little girl. The gaggle of kids they’d talked about once, long before their son, when her stomach had still been rounding and he hadn’t had a thought to spare to what the cost might be.

He sighed, but his smile came to stay this time. He curved his hand around her hip, fingers bunching in her skirt, pushing it up. “A girl, huh?”

Makino’ smile spoke of a battle won, but there was no conceit in it, just a gentle kind of joy that came from a heart that didn’t presume. “Admit it. It would be nice.”

“Hmm, yes. Another pair of eyes like that. Just what I need.”

He heard her laugh, light and playful, before she reached out to pluck his glasses from his nose, tucking them out of the way before she slid fully into his lap, flattening her hand against his chest as she ducked her head to kiss him. Her lips were soft, and the trail of her fingers up his throat so light it had him forgetting everything but her touches, and the yielding curves under his fingers.

“Come on,” Makino murmured, giving a tug at his shirt. “If you’re done reading the paper, we can try right now.” He felt her smile, and her tongue as she deepened the kiss, making him sink back into the chair. A musing hum sat, low in her throat as she added, “I’ll even let you try that thing with the apron.”

The sound that rose from his chest conveyed surrender, and he tightened his grip on her hip, before sliding his fingers lower to grip her rear. “So persuasive,” he laughed into her mouth. “And so efficient. It’s what I admire about you.”

“Hmm.” She kissed him again. “Only that?”

“It’s pretty high on the list.”

“Oh there’s a _list_?”

Shanks grinned, but his reply was slow in coming. The tight knot of want in his gut made it difficult to think past her body in his lap, tiny and lovely. “I could recite it to you,” he told her. “It’ll be a little different from my usual dirty talk, but I’ll make it work.”

“You know how to put your mouth to good use, although you mostly use it for talking,” Makino agreed, and he laughed so hard he had to break the kiss.

“Maybe I’ll combine my methods,” he told her, flicking his tongue over her bottom lip, the implication clear. He felt her shiver, and his smile curved, full of impish delight. “Show that I can be efficient, too.”

Her skirt pushed up, he sought her bare skin, a muted groan escaping him, chasing the hitch of her breath as she shifted in her seat, tilting her hips towards his hand. A murmur of discontent fell, muffled against his mouth when he skirted around what she wanted, trailing his fingers up to cup her hip instead, and he answered the reproach in her kiss with a cheeky grin.

But dragging his hand over her hip to her stomach, he hesitated, feeling the old stretch marks under his palm. Faded, but the physical reminder was there. It wasn’t a kind one.

As though sensing where his thoughts had gone, Makino drew back a little, brushing her thumbs over his cheekbones. “Shanks,” she said. “I’ll be okay.” She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “If it helps, I seem to remember you liking me pregnant.”

Oh, she had no idea just how much. “You’re making a very compelling case,” he told her. “Again. _Unfair_.”

She hummed; he felt the sound of it, low and beckoning where she was pressed against him, no space for secrets between them, his own in particular. From where she was sitting, there was no doubt of the effect she was having, and he felt her pleasure in her smile as she murmured against his mouth, “I’ll let you even the scales. Have your way with me.”

Decision made, Shanks slipped his arm under her legs, rising from his seat and tossing her over his shoulder in the same breath. She scrambled for purchase, her laughter tumbling down his back, along with her braid.

“Well then,” he said, tightening his grip around her legs. “I guess it’s time to show you those sailor’s knots I was talking about. I’m warning you though, you’ll be really impressed. I wasn’t just a pirate famous for my swagger and charm. I know a thing or two.”

“Two might be pushing it,” Makino said, and Shanks pretended to drop her, smile widening at the sound of her laughter, and the feel of it where she clung to his shoulder.

“For that, I’ll show you all three,” he said, and her laughter persisted, pleased and breathless in their wake as he strode across the threshold; a sound that had never had trouble finding a place for itself between the walls of their home.

And there was room for more of it yet, he thought, and rooted his fleeting conviction in that — the sound of several running feet, and laughter even brighter than their own.

 

—

 

Of course, there wasn’t a lot of time for _trying_ , with an active three-year-old underfoot.

_“Mama!”_

The little voice rose, muffled by the door to the storeroom, and Shanks stifled a groan against her mouth. “Wasn’t Yasopp supposed to watch him?”

Makino’s answer had no words, all of them lost in the breath that shivered out instead when he pushed his fingers under her skirt. It was getting increasingly hard to concentrate on anything else.

She was seated on one of the barrels, her knees on either side of his hips and her skirt rucked up to her waist, her blouse unbuttoned. One of her stockings had slid down, to bunch up around the ankle of her boot. She’d have called their disproportionate states of undress unfair, but then he always wore his shirts open, and she’d pushed the rest of it halfway off his shoulders.

Her hands shook from the feel of him, hard planes of unyielding muscle and his skin hot to the touch, fingers bumping against jagged scar tissue and the soft hairs on his chest, before dipping lower, slipping beneath the waistline of his pants—

 _“Mama!”_ came the call again, and she dropped her head back against the wall with a whimper.

“If we stay really quiet,” Shanks murmured into the dip of her throat, before grinning a kiss over her pulse, leaping back against his mouth. “He might go away.”

Her laugh was a shudder, breathlessly pleading, and when he kissed his way down her chest she shifted, tilting her hips closer and finding him hard. She pushed a moan back down her throat.

“You underestimate how persistent he is,” Makino breathed. “He’s _your_ son.”

She hesitated a second. Her hands hovered at his waist, trailing the inner lining of his pants before moving around to his rear, and she felt his grin when it widened.

“Let’s see who’s more persistent,” Shanks said. He feathered a kiss along the curve of her breast, and the sound that drew from her stirred the dark privacy of the storeroom, a little too loud for the stealth they were attempting.

“You’re not being _quiet_ ,” he told her, mouth at her breast now, drawing a slow circle with his tongue that turned her protest to a plea.

Her response when she managed it was a furious whisper, “Well you’re not exactly _helping_!”

_“Mama!”_

Makino sighed, chest heaving with it. “Shanks—”

“Five minutes,” he told her between kisses, marking a path down her sternum as he pushed her skirt out of the way, his grin stretching as he ducked his head—

Her next protest didn’t even make it off her tongue.

She’d let go of his pants to tangle her fingers in his hair. Having dragged it loose of its cord, it fell around her hands, red with thin veins of silver bleeding through, and she gripped a handful of it at the nape of his neck, tempting another groan from his chest that she felt with a startled jerk.

He laughed, a deep chuckle, but she had nothing to offer in response but a silent cry, lodged in her throat. She felt feverish, like she couldn’t get enough, not even close, but also that if she got much more she might faint. His skin was warm under her hands, and his mouth hot against her, and it was too much and not enough, and even with the hard barrel digging into her tailbone and their son calling, she couldn’t muster the will to suggest they relocate to another time and place.

“How are you feeling about those five minutes?” Shanks murmured, kissing her stomach. He flicked his eyes up to look at her, his hair falling into his face, and it was a feat remembering what he’d even asked. His hand curled around her raised knee, slipping under her other stocking, to tug it down.

There were no more calls from beyond the door, and Makino could have wept from the relief.

“Okay,” she said, the word escaping with a breath, before she lifted her legs to wrap around his waist, pulling him down and surprising a laugh from him as he caught himself against her. His shirt was on the floor now, his pants hanging low on his hips, and he had to brace himself on the barrel so as not to take them both down.

Drawing him close, she smiled her answer against his mouth, and the words, “Show me what you’ve got.”

Shanks grinned, and when he slid his hand up her thigh, swallowed her moan with a kiss.

 

—

 

“You know,” Yasopp said when they emerged later, Shanks with a telling swagger and Makino discreetly pushing her hair back into her kerchief, “People eat here.”

“Good thing we did it in the storeroom, then,” Shanks chirped, and Makino slapped his shoulder, mortified.

“Shanks!”

“What? Are you really going to pretend we were doing inventory? I know you’re a good multitasker, but I’m pretty sure you were a little too preoccupied to have managed doing both that _and_ me. Or if you were, I wasn’t doing a good enough job doing _you_.”

Makino suffocated a whimper with her hands. “Please stop.”

“That’s not what you were saying two minutes ag—”

“Mama!”

“Perfect timing,” Makino sighed, and before Shanks could make another vulgar comment, she’d reached down to hoist their son into her arms, prompting a trilling laugh.

She kissed his cheek. “Hi, little heart. Were you looking?”

“Thankfully, not good enough,” Shanks murmured under his breath, and the look she shot him was full of playful warning. The upside to having a child not yet old enough to pick up on the finer points of lewd public flirting; they could actually get away with it.

The same couldn’t be said for the other people in the room, whose entirely too-knowing grins didn’t seem inclined to let them get away with anything.

Shanks returned her look with a wink, and watched her cheeks flush prettily. She hadn’t managed to smooth out all the evidence of what they’d been up to, her hair tellingly mussed and still escaping the kerchief he’d pulled loose earlier, and he was pretty sure she’d forgotten to pull up at least one of her stockings. On top of that, there was a languid and all too telling grace to her movements that spoke of being sated, her shoulders loose and her smile content.

She was the most expressive person he knew, but she was never as bad at being inconspicuous as when she’d just had sex.

He had half a mind to point it out, if only to make her blush deepen, but he only tasted the words, before tucking them under his tongue. However delightful her mortification at his shamelessness, he was reluctant to disrupt the smile that was on her face now, as she scrunched her nose up and bumped it against their son’s, luring out another giggle.

They’d been trying for a while, without results. And he knew she was worried it was taking so long, despite that ever-ready stubbornness that was hers, and that reared itself in the face of adversity; even small, personal hurdles. It was good to see her happy.

He passed her later when she was piling empty glasses onto a tray, fingers sketching over her hip, before drifting lower as he ducked his head to kiss her neck. “If we get Ben to babysit, we can squeeze in another five minutes before closing,” he murmured.

Her grin flitted, quick and pleased across her face. “You’ll have to warn him in advance, so _he_ doesn’t come looking,” she said. “I still don’t think we’ve been forgiven for the time he walked in on us.”

“Believe me, he’s walked in on worse things,” Shanks said, and when she pursed her mouth with that dubious smile that told him she wasn’t buying what he was selling, he winked. “I might tell you what they were, if you’re good.”

She slapped his ass as she breezed past, and evaded his reaching fingers. “I’ll endure the suspense!” she called over her shoulder, dark eyes bright, like earth after a shower of rain, and Shanks could only watch her go, gaze held by the sway of her hips, and marvel that his choices had brought him this; so much happiness he felt almost selfish for wanting more.

Of course, he’d never shied away from a little selfishness, and where she was concerned, Shanks doubted he’d ever get enough.

 

—

 

They tried for a year, without success.

They say it’s when you stop waiting for something that it happens. A watched pot doesn’t boil, or some such nonsense, but maybe there’s some truth to it. Or maybe it’s just kinder to believe that, for a heart struggling to hold onto hope.

She'd waited ten years once, but no one can endure a whole decade of counting the days. She’d stopped, after a while. Life without him had moved on, but that was how she’d endured it, all those years before he’d come back to her. She’d had her bar to run, and her life to live; her friends, and her community. There’d been longing, of course, because she might have stopped counting the days, but she’d never once stopped loving him. But the years had softened it from the unendurable heartache it had been, the day he’d left her. Makino didn’t think she could have managed ten years of actively waiting for him to come back.

And then there was the fact that she’d known he would come back one day. But it was difficult to _stop_ waiting for something, when there was no certainty that it would even come to pass.

Blood, again. Same as last month, and the one before. Over a year of trying, and still nothing. She didn’t know what they were doing _wrong_.

She didn’t want to think about the fact that it might not be what they were doing that was the problem.

She’d drawn herself a bath, looking forward to a scalding soak after a long day at the tavern, but the blood in the water had cut it short, and she’d wrapped herself in her dressing robe and listened to the still-warm water drain out of the tub. And she’d lost track of time, sitting there, hugging her knees and following the lazy path of the sinking sun across the floorboards in the corridor beyond the doorway.

That was how Shanks found her, after sunset when the shadows had started to gather in the nooks and corners of their home. He’d been busy putting Ace to bed; she’d caught the muffled melodies of the songs she could sing in her sleep, and his laughter as he tried to change the lyrics to something a bit more suited innocent ears. He’d sung three altogether, two more than they usually allowed, but by the time she heard his footsteps approaching there was no sound from their son’s room.

“Hey,” she heard him say, that natural undercurrent of laughter in his voice softening his surprise. “I thought I’d come join you, but it looks like I’m too late.” She didn’t look up, but saw him shift his weight. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not going to happen, is it?”

She didn’t specify what she meant, but then Makino doubted she needed to. He didn’t exactly need instructions to read her.

Shanks didn’t answer. Closing the door behind him, he slid down the length of it, until he was seated directly opposite, long legs caged around hers where she’d curled herself up.

He didn’t comment on the familiar setting, although she doubted it had slipped him by.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” she asked then, after a moment of just sitting there in silence. “Doc said there shouldn’t have been any complications, but _—_ ” the last word broke off with a sob, “I’m the one who—”

“ _Makino_.”

The suddenly sharp note in his voice cut off her words, and she jerked, taken aback. He never raised his voice around her, even during their rare arguments, and she felt the effect now like she’d been struck.

She wiped at her eyes, her breath little more than a shudder. Her smile felt forced when she dragged it to the surface. “So much for a gaggle of kids, huh?”

His expression fell, the hard press of his features yielding with a breath, but the heartbreak that replaced it wasn’t any better, and she squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to look at it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…I was just so _sure_ this time.”

Shanks was quiet. Makino didn’t know if it was because he didn’t know what to say, or because he was still angry that she’d blame herself. Except it had to be her, hadn’t it?

“It could be me,” he said then, as though having followed the path of her thoughts. When she looked at him, the corner of his mouth had crooked in a bitter smile. “I know we joke about it, but I’m not a young man anymore.”

She shook her head. “You’re barely past forty. It doesn’t— it’s not the same. If I was older, then—”

“But what if it was me?” he asked then, and she blinked. “Would you blame me?”

Her breath rushed out, and she spoke without thinking, “No.”

“Then why are you so ready to blame yourself?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Whatever she’d meant to say, it slipped through her fingers.

“No one’s at fault,” he said then, voice gentle but firm. “Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way we hope they will.”

She didn’t bother wiping her tears now, just allowed them to run. “I really wanted a girl,” she said, her voice small.

His expression softened. “Yeah,” he said. He ducked his head a little, seeking her eyes. “We could keep trying,” he said. “If you want.”

Her smile trembled. “Five minutes?” she asked, laughing around a sob.

Shanks rose to his feet, holding out his hand for hers. Helping her up, he grinned a kiss across her knuckles. “I just put our son to bed. I think we can take a little longer.”

Makino wiped at her eyes, her laugh thick and tired. She felt lethargic, and cold from sitting still so long in just her dressing robe, and his warmth was a desperate relief when he pulled her close, fingers reaching to loosen the knot at her waist.

Her robe slipping open, the smile he gave her conveyed an excitement the years hadn’t succeeded in touching, and her laughter was quick to follow, few tears left in the sound as he bent his head to nip at the skin of her collar, warm fingers finding her bare hip, before fleeting up to cup the swell of her breast, the touches eager but deliberate with quiet worship.

He kissed her slowly, his hand delving into her hair, dragging it loose until it spilled around his fingers, and when she breathed Makino let her grief go with it, not wanting to think beyond him touching her, not even about that stubborn hope that tried to find her, even now.

She knew he felt her frustration in the way her hands gripped his shoulders, her attention fleeting and her distraction a fact, but he’d never been one to back down from a challenge, and she felt the way he responded, each touch firmer, pushing her robe off her shoulders as he stole her breath and her thoughts both, until all she knew was his smile against her skin, and his warmth inside her.

He’d always been good at making her forget.

 

—

 

Two more months of disappointment had passed when she woke up one morning, scrambling for the toilet.

It had been years since she’d last seen an awakening so brutal, but it wasn’t distress she felt at the realisation, which found her between heaves, bent over the toilet with vomit coating her hair.

Shanks found her like that, laughing into the toilet bowl, covered in sweat and vomit and with tears running down her face. The hope was almost too much to bear, and the happiness filling her chest so great it left her dizzy, but then he was laughing with her, pushing her hair back from her face, and she couldn’t have dredged up a single care for the violent retching.

Doc told them to wait a bit — said that it was a little early to confirm it for sure, but _that_ she knew how to do, although it was difficult keeping from letting slip the reason for her happiness, and Makino knew her face revealed everything but she didn’t _care_. Instead she kissed her son until he was shrieking with laughter, and rooted out that small scrap of lace left over from her wedding dress that she’d been saving, hands itching for her sewing kit and an idea already in mind.

“What’s that you’re working on?”

Shanks was looking over her shoulder where she’d seated herself on the sofa, a heap of fabrics in her lap. Makino smoothed her fingers over the slip of embroidered lace. Not enough for a whole piece, but enough for some of it.

She rubbed her thumb over a small seed pearl, stitched into the lace. Garp had brought it over on one of his visits; a tiny sliver of the life she’d left behind, but then she’d always meant for it to be part of the new one she was making.

“Hey, I know this,” Shanks said then, laughing. He palmed the fabric between his fingers. “I’m pretty sure I remember taking this off you.”

She batted his hand away. “Of course that’s what you remember.”

He grinned. “Why wouldn’t I? You looked gorgeous in that dress.”

“In the dress or out of the dress?”

“You say that like it can’t be both.”

She shook her head, but her smile stayed, and she smoothed her thumbs over the fabric. She tried to imagine what it would look like, like the little girl wearing it. “Well, I’m not making anything for me this time.”

“No?” She felt his grin where he’d tucked his nose under her ear. “And here I was hoping for a racy nightie.”

She indulged him, her hum low and laughing, and her smile close at its heels. “I might make one of those, too. I’ll need something new, once I start getting bigger.”

“Could there be lace on it?”

She tipped her head back to look at him, her smile marvelling at the entirely boyish grin lighting up his face. “Look at you,” she said. “Grown man.”

“What? A grown man can’t appreciate the thought of his wife in a lacy nightie?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” she laughed, ducking her head when he moved to kiss her. “You’re distracting me from my work!”

“Good,” Shanks rumbled, kissing her neck. “You have plenty of time for that. It’s months away yet.”

“Hmm, you’ll have to do better than that if you want to convince me.”

“Well, I’d put on something lacy, but I don’t think it would have the same effect as it does on you.”

She laughed so hard she snorted through her nose, and the scrap of lace was forgotten under his kisses, but she didn’t really mind the distraction. He was right; they had time. And this was a different kind of wait, one with a promise at the end.

 

—

 

Four weeks later she woke to find the sheets wet. At first she thought it was just the heat, before she noticed the colour, a dark stain like a red flower, blooming over the white.

It covered her hands and her nightdress, the sight of it so strange it took her a moment to understand what was going on, and another to realise that the distressed, keening sound had come from her.

“Makino?”

It wasn’t until she felt a hand gripping her shoulder, and Shanks’ voice, her name dragging her back, not a question this time but a command, that Makino realised she was sobbing.

Her hands shook, and when she looked at him she couldn’t seem to focus her gaze, his features blurred through the dark and the tears that had filled her eyes, but she felt the warmth of his hand around her shoulder, grounding her, before he released it to seek her hands.

She felt his fingers stilling, and heard how his breath caught, before an oath followed, sharp with surprise. The pain clenching low in her stomach forced a shout past her teeth, and she felt him moving, the mattress lifting — heard him speaking, his fingers shaking where they gripped her chin, as though to make her look at him, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Panic had hold of her, and without answering she was frantically shoving the sheets away, pain and realisation colliding within her, and she had to get out of the bed — had to get away from the bloody sheets, and the truth staring her in the face.

Shanks’ arm came around her then, slipping under her legs to lift her off the bed, his grip around her so tight it jarred her back into awareness. And he didn’t often carry her, his one arm making it awkward, but when he pulled her off the mattress she gripped him back so fiercely Makino didn’t think he could have dropped her if he’d tried.

The broken sob offered into the crook of his neck felt like it took something from her, but Shanks didn’t say anything, just carried her out, the arm under her legs unyielding and his steps decisive. She barely registered when he eased her down, didn’t feel him gently pry her arms loose to tug her ruined nightgown over her head, and barely even noticed the hot water rising around her when he turned the tap on the tub.

His stark efficiency would have been desperately welcome at any other time, but Makino felt too numb to think beyond herself, and to take in what was going on around her; the cold bathroom and the scalding hot water, and the blood dissolving to a wispy pink. She didn't hear Shanks leaving — didn't hear what he told her before he did, and didn't feel the trembling kiss to the crown of her head. All she could feel was the terrible ache that sat, burrowed so deep in her stomach she feared she would never be able to uproot it.

 

—

 

She didn’t sleep any more that night — couldn’t bear to go back to bed, even after they’d changed the sheets and aired out the bedroom. Instead she sat on the porch, her legs tucked close like a shield as she watched the sun crawl up, a strange hollowness filling her chest, making her feel frail and brittle, her bones sharp and aching.

The cool air froze the sweat that had gathered between her shoulder blades, along her neck under the heavy weight of her hair, still damp from her bath, but even shivering, Makino didn’t have the strength to rise, or to get something warmer to wear. Shanks had given her one of his shirts, and she sat wrapped in it now, arms around her knees, tears drying on the over-long sleeves even if she’d long since stopped crying.

She sat there until she saw him come back up the path, Doc at his heels. But she didn’t need to have him confirm it, this time — not what they’d had, if only for a short while, or what they’d lost.

 

—

 

She made the little dress, white lace and seed pearls invoking patterns of waves and whirlpools. It would look good with red hair, she thought, stitching a school of tiny fish into the gauzy fabric, a gossamer cobweb cradled in her hands with excruciating care. A small, stubborn act of resistance, but then she’d never been good at _giving up_.

 

—

 

They lost two altogether that year. The first at a few weeks; the second at three months.

 

—

 

They stopped trying after the third.

 

—

 

The little hand extended towards him, the building block offered, and Ben accepted with a nod, putting it down in the steadily growing pile beside him as Ace turned back to the chest sitting beneath the window, the afternoon sun dripping gold over the trove of toys; a small heart’s private treasures.

Quick feet hurried back across the carpet, palms tucked safely around another block, always sure to divide his attentions evenly, and Yasopp accepted the offering with a wink, prompting a cheeky smile, before the boy turned back to continue distributing his hoard.

“Wonder when they’ll announce the next one,” Yasopp said, inclining his head to Ben. “The betting pool is getting pretty big. I’ve got my money on a girl this time, but then so does half the guys. I’m guessing the real money’s on _when_ , not the sex.”

Ben didn’t answer, gaze fixed on his godson, having uprooted a small wooden ship with a noise of delight. But that one he put to the side, apparently too precious to offer up, however generous his little heart, and despite the thoughts ushered in by Yasopp’s words, Ben felt his smile lifting.

“Hey,” Yasopp spoke up. “That reminds me. There a reason you haven’t placed your bets yet?”

Ben didn’t look away from Ace, still rummaging around in the box, the sound the only one disrupting the otherwise lethargic quiet. Where his parents had stolen off to, Ben didn’t know, but hoped the offered respite was a kindness, when they had nothing else to give them.

“You know something,” Yasopp said then.

Ben didn’t answer at once. “I think,” he said at length, choosing his words with care. Children that age picked up on more than they often let on, and he would spare him that, like he would spare his mother the enthusiasm of a crew who meant well, but didn’t know better.

He looked at Yasopp. “Just in case, maybe the guys should keep that particular betting pool under wraps.”

His brows furrowed, before understanding alighted in Yasopp’s eyes. “Oh.” A pause, and then, his voice having dropped, “They sure?”

Ben held out his hand, palm up. “Time will tell,” he said, accepting the block when Ace handed it over, before adding it to the pile. “Like most things.”

 

—

 

Living so far out of reach, they didn’t often get visitors. At least not of the sort who came unannounced.

It was a little like Fuschia that way too, Makino thought. A busier port, but there was a predictability to life here; a sense of security that she’d never once questioned, since Rayleigh had first brought her from East Blue. She’d never not felt _safe_.

She hadn’t heard them approaching; hadn’t realised they were there until she suddenly _felt_ them — two people, and she didn’t recognise either presence. And she knew every soul on this island, which meant they had come from somewhere else.

Shanks was at the tavern, and it was just her and Ace.

 _Ace_ , who had been playing outside on the porch.

She was moving already before she’d had time to think about what she was doing, panic climbing up her chest, shoving her body into reacting, and she’d just pushed through the front door when she stopped.

A man was kneeling in front of her son, laughing, blond hair falling in tumbling curls under his top hat. Beside him stood a young woman, hands tucked behind her back, observing the interaction with a small smile. At Makino’s arrival, she glanced up, the smile stretching wider.

She nudged her companion, who lifted his head, tipping his hat back to look at her. Makino watched as his smile widened, as though in recognition.

“This must be Ace,” the stranger said. There was laughter in his voice, and his smile tugged at the scarred tissue drawn tight across his face, over his eye. An old burn scar, from the looks of it. “Luffy told me, but I had to come see for myself.”

Ace didn’t seem perturbed by their arrival, only curious, but then her son had always been particularly trusting.

Makino wasn’t as easily convinced. She still remembered the time that stranger had stopped by Party’s, asking questions. And then Rayleigh’s convenient arrival, to whisk her away. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t considered the thought. Emperors had enemies; the fact that Shanks wasn’t an active pirate anymore didn’t change that.

But he’d mentioned _Luffy_.

“Who are you?” Makino asked, wary. She had the vague inclination that she’d seen his picture in passing, maybe in the newspaper. Of course, that didn’t really help placate her worries, given what kind of people usually made it to the front page.

But her wariness had no effect on his good mood, and, “Hey, Ma-chan,” the stranger said, rising to his feet, and the endearment almost made her recoil.

Only a handful of people called her that, and none but Luffy outside of Fuschia.

A sigh from beside him, fond and long-suffering. “Take off your hat, at least,” the girl laughed, before she plucked it from his head, and his smile flashed, wide and sheepish as the sun bared his face—

Recognition struck, and with enough force that Makino staggered back a step. But she _knew_ those curls, and that wide, toothy grin, even if it had been well over a decade since she’d seen either.

“So,” Sabo said, still grinning. “Recognise me n—”

She’d sprung down the steps from the porch onto the footpath and had thrown her arms around him before he could get another word off his tongue, startling a laugh from him instead. She felt his arms lifting to wrap around her back in a tight hug.

She realised she was crying, but it was a detached thought, finding suddenly a small piece of her old life at her fingertips, and one she’d thought lost forever.

She should have realised by now that this sea dredged up unexpected things.

“You still hug like you used to,” Sabo chuckled, drawing back to look at her. He was so tall Makino had to lift her head to meet his eyes. “Dadan hugs like she’s trying to squeeze your lungs out, but your hugs were always really nice.”

Makino stared at him, smiling back at her. It was difficult, scrambling to connect the face looking down at her with the one she remembered, with its round, dirty cheeks and that one missing tooth.

 _You’re alive_ , she wanted to say, but realised the words were a bit redundant, with him standing before her.

“You grew up,” she blurted instead, and had to laugh when it came out sounding like an accusation.

“Don’t be fooled,” the girl quipped, and Sabo stuck his tongue out, although his grin ruined the attempt somewhat.

“This is Koala,” he told Makino, indicating the girl at his side. Pretty in soft pink frills, and with a sweet, unassuming smile, but then Sabo added, “Careful. She hits.”

He got a punch in the arm for that, and Makino’s tears spilled over with her laughter.

“Hi,” the girl chirped. “Sorry for dropping by unannounced, but Sabo said it would be okay.” She raised one brow at him. “I’m still not convinced.”

Makino looked at them both, shaking her head. There was an ache in her chest that she couldn’t decide if felt like laughter or tears. “You’re always welcome,” she told them, and Sabo’s smile brightened.

He looked so _changed_. Luffy hadn’t looked much different when she’d seen him last.

But then Makino had watched Luffy grow up. She hadn’t seen Sabo since he was ten.

Her thoughts were spinning, too many for her to sift through at once, but she managed to grab hold of one. “Where have you been all this time?” she asked.

His grin crooked a little, as though this wasn’t the first time he’d been faced with that question. “There’s a story there,” he told her.

“There’s more than one story, with all the trouble you’ve gotten into over the years,” Koala interjected.

Makino smiled, observing them. “I’d love to hear them all.” She looked at Koala. “And you can fill in the blanks when you need to. I have a feeling I know what kind of stories he’ll be telling.”

Sabo looked ready to protest the insinuation when a low rumble cut through the quiet, and Makino’s smile quirked, knowing. “Or maybe I should cook you something to eat first.”

His whole countenance brightened at that, and he turned to Koala, grinning. “She used to slip us food behind Dadan’s back whenever we were grounded.”

“I know, you told me,” she said, her smile patient. Then to Makino, “He hasn’t stopped talking about you since we left East Blue.”

Makino blinked. “You went to East Blue?”

Sabo’s smile had split his face. “We stopped by Dadan’s. She said you’d married a pirate and left for the New World. And not just any pirate, either. You married an _Emperor_ , Ma-chan?”

Makino pursed her mouth with a smile. “Don’t get your hopes up. His royal highness is wiping tables at the tavern.”

A tug at her skirt, and when Ace raised his arms she reached down to lift him up, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she settled him on her hip.

Sabo was watching her son now, and with such earnest interest Ace ducked his head into her shoulder, suddenly shy.

“He has freckles,” Sabo said then, sounding delighted.

Makino smiled, nosing the crown of his head. “It comes with the hair. We try to keep him out of the sun, but he doesn’t like to sit still.” She pinched his side gently, and the little laugh it coaxed from him made Sabo’s grin soften.

“I always knew you’d make a good mom,” he told her, and Makino’s heart constricted, even before he added, grinning, “We used to argue over which of us you’d adopt, if you could. Luffy didn’t want to share. Ace was conflicted, because he had such a huge crush on you.”

“Only Ace?” Koala asked dryly, and Sabo flushed.

Makino laughed, her chest hurting from it. After the year they’d had, it felt like she’d forgotten how.

“Come on inside,” she said, turning to the house. “I’ll make you both something to eat, and then you can tell me who taught you how to iron your clothes, Sabo, so I can send them a sternly worded note.”

It was Koala’s turn to stick her tongue out. “Told you.”

Stepping onto the porch, Makino caught Sabo’s murmur, “Do you really think she’d send Dragon-san a stern note?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m not the one who married an Emperor. I don’t think anything could stop her if she wanted to. But you could have avoided this if you’d asked Iva-chan to teach you, like I told you to.”

“Are you ever going to let this go?”

“Is your coat supposed to look as wrinkled as your cravat?”

Their quiet bickering followed Makino onto the porch, and that now-familiar ache in her chest loosened a bit. She nudged her nose against her son’s cheek, hiding her smile when it wavered, although she still couldn’t pin a name to the feeling, unfurling like a long-held breath behind her ribcage.

“Hey, Ma-chan,” Sabo said then, and Makino looked over her shoulder to find a sheepish grin directed at her, as he held up his arm, indicating a large hole in his sleeve that looked like something had burned right through it.

“Would you mind patching this hole in my coat?”

 

—

 

“So,” Shanks said later, walking into the corridor where she was rooting through one of the storage cupboards for an extra pillowcase. “There are two kids getting ready to camp out in our living room, one of which just happens to be the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army. Anything you’d like to share?”

Tugging out the pillowcase from its confines, Makino inclined her head to look at him. “He’s Luffy’s brother,” she said. “I told them they could stay the night. It’s a long voyage out here, and we have plenty of room.”

“I see you’re just going to skip right past the revolutionary bit.”

“This house is always full of outlaws,” she told him, kissing his cheek as she passed. “What’s two more?”

The pillowcase made it into the negotiations about sleeping arrangements, which Sabo looked to be losing, and watching them get settled from the doorway, squabbling over who got the sofa, Makino plucked at her skirt. Sabo was holding one of the pillows over his head, but a sharp jab to his ribs had him relinquishing it. Their interactions seemed steeped in a long friendship, laughter and disagreements stumbling over each other, but they kept their voices low so as not to wake Ace.

And it was nice, having _noise_ in their house — and more than just one pair of little feet running. She’d always thought it was a house made for a big family, and she found a smile now, watching Koala whack Sabo over the face with the pillow, before laying claim to the sofa.

She felt Shanks stepping up behind her, and, “It might not be the worst thing,” Makino said, softly, lifting her head to look at him. “Not having any more.”

She saw his smile, a sombre thing, but his eyes curved at the corners, deepening his laugh-lines. “Well, there’s no shortage of kids stopping by to eat us out of our house,” Shanks agreed. “We might need to get more beds, though.”

“Yasopp could get started on that annex,” she said. They’d been putting it off. It had seemed excessive, and had felt too much like planning for something that wouldn’t happen. But watching their living room now, Sabo grumbling over the futon, some of the weight eased off her heart, the one that had been waiting so long.

The crooked twist to his smile loosened then, and she felt his hand where it settled on her hip, warm through her skirt. “Let’s go to bed,” Shanks murmured, with a kiss to her neck. His smile stretched along her skin, all cheek and teeth. “We can sleep in tomorrow.”

Makino furrowed her brow, bemusement finding her at the openly suggestive look on his face. “What are you talking about? We can’t sleep in. We have guests.”

“No,” he purred, fingers reaching under her shirt, seeking more of her smile now that he’d found it again. “We have _babysitters_.”

 

—

 

One year of trying, and one year of not-trying, and the thing they’d stopped waiting for happened, quite without a care for whether or not they were prepared to face it.

He had his back turned, but he _felt_ it, her consciousness slipping, along with the tray in her hands, but it was Ben who caught her, his chair shoved back, and following the glass shattering across the floorboards.

Shanks was already moving, along with every other occupant in the room, and he’d reached them by the time Ben had eased her down onto the floor.

“What happened?” he asked, scrambling to check for a pulse, even as Ben drew his hand back, having already done so. Murmurs of concern was rising around them, but he shoved out the sound, eyes on Makino’s face, pale and unresponsive.

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “She gave no indication that she was feeling faint. She just toppled.”

“Get Doc,” Shanks snapped, no mind for who followed the order, or even to realise he wasn’t a captain anymore with any authority to make it. But he heard several voices rising in answer with affirmations, although the words had barely left his tongue before Makino was blinking her eyes back open.

It took a moment for them to focus on his, and he saw confusion as it settled across her features, taking in the many faces looking down at her from the circle they’d formed around her.

“Um. Hi?” she asked. Her brows dipped, and she turned her head, before lifting her eyes back to Shanks’. “What am I doing on the floor?”

The breath that dragged loose of him felt like it had been lodged like a knife in his chest. “You passed out,” Shanks told her.

She frowned up at him. “Oh,” she said. He had a protest ready when she made to sit up, but she ignored it, easing herself into a sitting position. She touched her fingertips to her brow. “Right. I felt really dizzy for a moment.” She met his eyes. “It’s been ages since I’ve fainted outright,” she said, laughing. “I haven’t done that since I was pregnant with—”

She stopped, and when she looked at him next, realisation alighting across her face in the shape of _hope_ , his heart cinched so tight in his chest it claimed his breath. But it wasn’t relief he felt, even as her smile split her face. “You don’t think—”

The bell jingled, and then Doc was striding in, stopping at the sight of the spectacle, Makino seated on the floor and Shanks kneeling beside her, and every other soul in the room hovering awkwardly.

Then to Shanks, “I came for her,” Doc said, amusement lifting the corners of his mouth, “but from where I’m standing, you’re the one who looks on the brink of passing out. You okay, Captain?”

Makino was still smiling, seeming otherwise unperturbed by the fact that she’d just fallen over in a dead faint, her whole expression the picture of growing hope and stubborn optimism. And he’d often joked that he was a boundless well of the latter, but when he reached for it now, all he found was the thought of those two long years, and the losses they’d suffered, one after the other. Blood on the sheets, and Makino crying.

Doc was talking then, and Shanks heard her responding. And he couldn’t seem to follow what they were saying, but he already knew what Doc would tell them — he could feel it, that sense he sometimes had, that a great change was afoot.

If only he could tell if it was for the better, or just the opposite.

 

—

 

It was safe to say they accepted the news differently.

Makino was elated — amorous and always-smiling, and a softly singing hum seeming to sit permanently under her breath. She seemed intent on greeting their unexpected joy with nothing less than that, despite what she’d been through already, happy to the point where his own worries faltered, no more resistant to the effect of that smile than he’d ever been.

Still. They had a way of finding him, slipping past his defences without him realising.

He was staring at the inventory list laid out on the counter before him, not seeing the contents. Imported goods and spirits, their names familiar but all of them eluding him. The numbers, too.

A gentle touch to his shoulder brought him back, and Shanks started, but, “Hey,” came Makino’s tender laugh, and her hand smoothing over his back. He felt his muscles unclenching under the touch, and blinked; he hadn’t realised he’d been so tense.

He felt her press up against him, the tuck of her round stomach to his hip, and the brush of her lips to his neck, as Makino murmured, “You’ve been staring at that thing for a while now. You’re not drawing dirty doodles again?”

His smile was startled, and he forgot for a second what he’d been thinking about. “I wasn’t, but now that you mention it…” He swept his gaze over her once, an appreciation that didn't need feigning, no matter his thoughts. “That dress is giving me ideas.”

The smile he got was unabashedly pleased, as he traced a fingertip along the delicately embroidered collar, the deep plum colour bringing out her eyes, and the wide neckline exposing her collarbones. She’d coiled her braid in a low bun, a few loose tendrils escaping, dark and wispy against her skin where they kissed the pale freckles dusting her slender neck.

Her pregnancy was an unavoidable fact, her tiny figure offset by the curve of her stomach, seeming almost exaggerated with the snug fit of the dress, the soft fabric clinging close to her body, although he suspected the choice was deliberate. A small, private allowance to show off her joy, or maybe even a silent act of defiance, in spite of everything that had preceded it. She was handling this much better than he was, even her fears.

Makino smoothed her hand tenderly over the bump, and Shanks tried not to let his eyes linger on it too long, although it was difficult tearing them away. Even modestly cut, the dress didn’t leave much to the imagination, and the prominent curve of her belly kept tempting his gaze back, and his fingers where they twitched. It took effort not to reach out to touch it; took effort convincing himself that he _could._

He felt the hand on his back drifting lower, to settle just over his ass. “We could sneak off,” Makino said then, lifting up on her toes, the touch of her smile to his collar leaving a kiss in its wake. Her voice was soft, like her small shape against him. “And you could help get me out of the dress.”

“Yeah?” he laughed, despite himself, but it was difficult to hold on to his worries when she was looking at him like _that_ , her eyes dark and desire written all over her face, and the pert bow of her lips hinting at a teasing smile.

“Boss!” someone called from across the room, laughing. “We can see the bedroom eyes from over here, _sheesh_. You’ve already got one on the way, isn’t this where you’re supposed to sit back and relax?”

A roomful of _hoots_ and grins followed the remark, and Makino pressed her brow to his shoulder, her blush deepening, but her laugh when it drew from her was that lovely, unhinged thing, and Shanks stuck his tongue out at the room, before tucking a kiss to her hair.

“So,” she said. “Is that a 'yes' to sneaking off?”

He didn't answer at once. At any other time he would have taken her up on the offer in a heartbeat, but something held him back, even as he knew it shouldn’t. Sex didn't propose a threat to her condition, and wasn’t exactly discouraged, but everything she did these days had him pausing, worried if she exerted herself too much without resting, or tried to carry something too heavy, and it was exhausting—was _ridiculous_ —that he should be so afraid. But even knowing that didn't make it any easier to stop.

“Shanks?”

Her voice had a different quality now, but he was quick to counter it with a smile, as he ducked his head to kiss her neck. “Storeroom in ten minutes?” he murmured, and heard her answer in her laugh, light and melodic.

He felt her stomach where it pressed into his side, her proximity both a reminder and a distraction, but he focused his mind on the second, allowing her presence to ease away some of his persisting worries; the weight of her small hand on his lower back, and her laughter.

Across the bar, someone brought up the discussion of the sex again (a girl this time, or another boy, no—definitely a girl, or so seemed to be the general consensus), and the conversation changed tracks. Eager at the prospect of a new baby, the others made sure he wasn’t allowed to linger long with his thoughts, and with that much earnest enthusiasm filling their bar, it was almost easy to forget that he had concerns at all.

Ben’s ledgers had long since been rooted out from where they’d been tucked away, and bets had been placed, more than Shanks could keep track of, although Ben didn’t seem to have a problem, jotting them down as Makino’s stomach grew bigger, everything from dates down to the very hour.

Shanks refrained from pointing out the fact that Ben had yet to place his own bets. Somehow, it felt like invoking bad luck, suggesting there was a reason, although as the weeks crawled by it had come to sit like an itch under his skin (at six months Makino had let out a breath, and told him, smiling, “I think we’ll be okay this time”), every day burrowing a little deeper, as the source of his concerns changed, from one potential loss to another, quite different one.

Watching Makino as she made her way across the floor of their bar, a look stolen over her shoulder that had no care for his crew’s teasing, her eyes dark and smiling and her hand still resting over the bump, Shanks felt his heart clenching, tight like a fist behind his ribs.

He was happy, of course he was. But it was hard to remember the joy of a new little life, when it once almost took the dearest thing he had to bring it into the world.

 

—

 

There’d been a time in her life where she’d been afraid to want things for herself, or to  _want_ , period. Now it was a struggle convincing herself of the opposite — to not want something so much, and for her heart not to be so greedy.

Maybe being married to a pirate for so long was beginning to rub off on her.

Stepping into the storeroom, Makino felt the quiet as it welcomed her, the door closing behind her shutting out the cheerful din from the bar, patrons and pirates replaced with tall, looming shelves stacked high with food and bottles of liquor, all of it organised to the point where she could pick out a single brand of whiskey with her eyes closed.

She trailed her fingertips along one of the shelves, sitting a little higher than her shoulder, not a spec of dust to be found when she lifted her hand. Shanks must have done it recently, no doubt a pre-emptive measure to keep her from doing it, because god forbid she exerted herself by rising up on her toes to reach it.

But she couldn’t make herself feel irritation at the thought, or even want to, recognising what sat behind the small courtesy, stubbornly covert as it was. He didn’t tell her outright that he wanted her to take it easy; instead, he seemed to be trying his best to work around it, by making sure there were no reasons for her to strain herself.

The sigh that left her didn’t stir the quiet any more than it did the non-existent dust, and in the familiar shelter of the storeroom, Makino allowed her smile to slip.

The brief allowance felt like a small relief. Not because it was an effort being  _happy_ — she’d stubbornly claimed the right to be that, and wouldn’t be anything less for this child, as much of a blessing as all her pregnancies had been — but it was hard, sometimes, reconciling her shameless joy with her experiences; with her losses.

She touched her hand to her stomach, seeking assurance — the quickening of her unborn child, to help anchor her heart. A familiar routine, and one she sought frequently, almost greedily.

Nothing stirred under her hand, and Makino frowned, moving it higher, then around to her hip, her breath stuttering when she still couldn’t feel anything.

Suddenly frantic, she moved her hand back and forth, feeling out the shape of her; that tiny, delicate shoulder, and the little foot that would sometimes bump against her skin, but there was nothing.

Then — movement under her palm, and the breath that rushed out of her held a rough, dry sob as she braced her weight on the nearest shelf.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she breathed, her laugh shivering, uneasy on her breath as she smoothed her hand over her stomach, feeling how the baby moved now, and searching out that little foot where it kicked.

Calming her breathing, she rested her brow against the shelf. “Hey, little girl,” Makino murmured. “Did I wake you?”

The movements seemed almost to be in answer, pushing up against her fingers, trembling over the curve of her belly, but the designation still sat, unwavering on her tongue.

She had a feeling it was a girl, and had long since named her as such, even knowing that she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, and that the more she grew to love the idea of her — the more traits she ascribed her, impatience and wilfulness and familiar cheek — the harder it would be if something happened.

She’d tried in the beginning to not let herself get too attached — to form a bond that would only hurt more to break, the stronger it was. But as the months had passed, she hadn’t been able to help herself, or the image that had taken root; her father’s daughter, as quick to laugh and as easy to love. She felt it already, the feeling so profound it left her heartsick, wanting her — to hold her, to smell her soft skin, to rock her to sleep.

 _Please let me have you_ , she thought, one hand braced on the shelf, and the other pressed to her stomach, feeling the child in her womb, as though she was restless to be moving — to be born, and to live. It was at once an encouraging thought, and the most terrifying she’d ever experienced. She’d never in her life wanted anything as much as this.  _Please let us be okay this time._

She heard the door opening, and dropped her hand from the shelf as Shanks ducked his head inside, smile bemused, but hinting at familiar teasing. “I thought we said ten minutes. Or did you decide to get started without me?” Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him, muffling the laughter and conversation that had slipped through the cracks in the quiet. “I know you’re insatiable, but this is a new level of eager, even for you.”

Her smile didn’t need forcing, watching as he sidled up to where she stood among the shelves, his eyes hooded and smiling. His apron was slipping off his hips, and she reached out to tug it loose, finding his laughter soft and delighted as she let it drop to the floor.

“You’ve caught me,” she murmured, accepting the teasing suggestion. She didn’t touch her stomach now, plucking instead at the waistline of his pants, but she felt the baby moving, caged between their bodies.

Shanks grinned, touching his fingers to her braid where it was coming loose at her nape. “Yeah? Lucky me.” Unwinding it from her coiled bun, he watched as it fell down her back. “Your hair is getting really long,” he mused, palming it, a gentle reverence that she felt in small, teasing tugs, as he quipped, “You could strangle someone with this. Or do something  _really_  kinky. I have some suggestions. And I know what you’re going to say — ‘don’t you always?’, to which the answer is‘yes, and don’t even try to pretend you don’t want to hear them’.” Lifting the tail of her braid to kiss it, he raised his brows. “Shocked that I know you so well I can keep a conversation between us going by myself?”

He’d curled it around his fingers now, seeming curiously enthralled by the texture, and the words were on the tip of her tongue, to say that the state of her hair was likely the pregnancy’s doing, but she swallowed them back down before she could speak them. Instead she asked, and with enough cheek that she hoped it masked her other feelings, “Did you come in here just to touch my hair? You could do that in public.” Then with a small, clever smile, added, “Not that you’ve ever restricted yourself to chaste displays just because there’s an audience.”

His laugh spluttered, the sound of it loud in the quiet storeroom. “You were the one who slapped my ass in passing just yesterday!” At her innocent smile, his own grew wider, as though compelled, and, “ _Chaste_ ,” Shanks muttered fondly, shaking his head as he gave her braid a playful tug, before letting it drop. He touched a fingertip to her nose. “You might look it, but we both know differently.”

The echo of his laughter had made itself comfortable, seeming to have loosened something in the air, or maybe that was just her imagination. But it felt a little more like it should, between them — like it had once, when they’d first started trying for another child, their enthusiasm untouched by loss and only hampered by time constraints, and the attentions of an over-active toddler.

Taking his hand, she kissed his fingers, nipping at his scarred knuckles, before touching her lips to the heart of his palm, and watched through her lashes as his smile softened, before he stole his hand back, slipped from hers to cradle the back of her head, tilting it for a kiss.

The muffled sounds from the room outside faded to the edge of her hearing, and they were probably being entirely too obvious, having left their whole establishment unmanned and full of patrons. And once, just thinking about people’s assumptions might have made her pause, embarrassed, but she’d endured too much to care what they knew, or thought — had lost too much to want to lose  _this,_  too; the easy intimacy that had always been theirs, and that they’d always managed to find their way back to, no matter what.

And they were rarely alone, with their son growing and their crew as much a part of their lives now as they’d ever been, their whole island bearing witness to their daily doings; the local barkeeps who reigned over their little kingdom in their corner of the New World, and so it was a rare comfort, stealing a moment just for the two of them.

 _Three_ , she corrected herself, quickly and fiercely, even as she didn’t reach to touch her stomach this time.

She felt his hand as it paused on her waist, a single beat of indecision passing before he settled it over her hip, just out of reach of her stomach where their unborn child moved with that restless, eager spirit, seeming to beckon their attention, but Shanks didn’t chase after the flutters, even as she felt his fingers twitching through the fabric of her dress.

But she refused to let that stop her, as she reached for the buttons on his shirt, slipping her hands beneath the fabric and finding his skin warm under her fingers. And she tried not to think about the deliberate placement of his own as he touched her, tugging her hair loose from her braid before carding through it, tracing the slope of her spine beneath as she arched her back, curving over her rear and lower, always just out of reach.

 _It’ll be okay_ , she thought — willed it, as he reached beneath her to push his hand up under the skirt of her dress, gripping her thigh and easing her legs apart. And braced against the shelves, the rest of her weight supported by his larger frame, she willed her worries away with a breath as he entered her, the excruciating care in his movements only broken by the barest slip of control when she tilted her hips, taking him deeper, and stubbornly pushing herself closer until he could feel all of her, including the unapologetic curve of her pregnant stomach between them.

_We’ll be okay._

 

—

 

“Any discomfort?”

She focused on keeping her breathing level as Doc shifted the stethoscope, the metal cold against her skin. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said, watching as he moved it again, lower on her belly. “I get tired easily, and my back hurts.”

He said nothing, his expression carefully blank as he listened. A good thing, Makino supposed, as she tried not to read too much into his reactions, even as that was exactly what she was doing, and what she’d done on every check-up, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.

His silence wasn’t helping, and desperate for a distraction, Makino fixed her gaze on his arms, and the tattoos there, climbing up from beneath his gloves, along his forearms before disappearing into the sleeves of his shirt where he’d rolled them up to his elbows.

She watched the little fish that curled happily along the inside of his wrist, as though having just leaped from the water. He’d gotten it the day after Ace had been born, and watching it gave her some comfort now, allowing her breaths to ease out of her as his silence persisted, the stillness of his quiet observation broken only by the shift of the stethoscope, and the press of his fingers to her stomach.

Shift, pause. Shift, pause.  _Press_ , then pause again. The little fish seemed to follow the movements, slipping in and out of sight as he moved his hand, its tail tucked under the cuff of his glove.

Her gaze travelled further down, lingering a moment longer on the tattoo beneath it; the little cluster of stars, three in total, the design seemingly random, an old sailor’s homage to a map that would always guide the way, but Makino could pin a date to each, and knew they were anything but random; knew it wasn’t a sailor’s remembrance, but an uncle’s.

If he noticed her looking, Doc didn’t mention it, and she watched as he drew back, tucking the stethoscope away. “Everything seems to be in order,” he said, and Makino didn’t bother pretending that she hadn’t been holding her breath, allowing it to rush out of her now, ripe with relief.

Doc’s smile held understanding. “She’s getting impatient, from how much she’s moving, but she’s where she should be. Ace was more difficult—he’d turned the wrong way, as you probably remember.”

Her laugh escaped her in a huff. “He took nearly a full day. I’m hoping from her impatience that she’ll be quicker about it.”

His smile tugged upwards, into something acutely knowing, and a little wry. “She’s Captain’s girl, alright. Can’t keep still, even in the womb.”

Makino tried to keep her smile from faltering, but didn’t succeed, and saw that he’d caught it, from the way his brows dipped. “Everything okay?”

It was asked with the keen understanding of what the answer was, but also the unspoken assurance that he wouldn’t press her for it.

“He’s worried,” Makino confessed at length, fiddling with the hem of her blouse where she’d pulled it up. “He pretends that he isn’t.” She pressed her lips together. “He’s good at pretending.” Better than she was, anyhow, but then she’d always been a terrible liar.

Doc raised a brow. “Not that good, if you’ve caught on,” he said, but the remark didn’t seek to trivialise the issue, as he added, quietly, “Although I doubt he believes he’s got you fooled.”

She shrugged; it felt awkward on her shoulders, as though even her body couldn’t successfully fake a show of ease. “I still wish he’d just tell me.”

Doc looked at her. “Are  _you_  worried?”

She blinked, then blurted a laugh. “Of course I am!”

“You’re hiding it well, though,” Doc said, and her smile dropped. “Maybe it’s because you’re not trying to hide it. Everything else about you is just making it harder to notice.”

Makino stared at him, startled, before realisation of what he was saying reached her, and she felt her shoulders sinking.

There was a softening in Doc’s eyes. “He’s trying, I’m guessing more for your sake than his own,” he told her. “Can’t say I blame him. Your happiness has been positively contagious lately.” His eyes twinkled. “A little doctor humour for you. I’m practicing for the day when I can embarrass your kids.”

She thought she might have laughed, if she hadn’t been so surprised — and so hurt. “I never meant to make him feel like he  _couldn’t_  be worried.” Was that really what he thought?

Doc looked at her a long time, observing her where she sat; a diagnosis of a different sort this time, seeming to see past her physical frame, straight to her soul.

“The last time,” he said then, seeming to choose his words with care, although the mention still made her flinch, but Doc didn’t drop his eyes from hers. “He took it hard.”

It was a still-tender wound, the baby they’d lost at nearly six months, and just brushing up against the thought hurt. She’d thought they’d be okay, that time. They hadn’t even named her — hadn’t been able to bring themselves to do it, after they’d lost her.

“I’ve treated a lot of nasty injuries in my time,” Doc was saying then, the words weighing heavily with a grief kin to hers, “some of them traumatic enough they still give me nightmares, but inducing labour with the knowledge of a guaranteed stillbirth is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Watching you go through that, and Boss…” He paused, his eyes suddenly far away, as though lost in an old memory, before they refocused on hers. “You didn’t see him after, when you were sleeping off the meds. Was probably for the best. I doubt he would have wanted you to see him like that.”

He didn’t say anything more; didn’t go into detail to paint her a picture, but then he didn’t have to — the image conjured itself without trouble, and so vividly it stole her breath, her heart seizing with the thought. Shanks, who loved so fiercely, and with his whole being.

She didn’t know what to say, suddenly paralysed by the resurgence of memories and impressions, most of them half-remembered, clouded by the haze of pain which lay draped like a thick shroud over that whole, terrible day.  _Pain_ , first at the discovery that something was wrong, then at Doc’s grave confirmation of her suspicions, before he’d told her, quietly and with visible effort, that she would still have to give birth. But all of that pain had paled in comparison to the labour itself.

It had  _hurt_  — had hurt worse than with Ace, worse than anything she’d ever endured, so much there’d been a moment where she’d thought she wouldn’t survive it, that no one could survive something like that.

And Shanks had borne it without faltering, gripping her hand through it all, an immovable presence beside her even when she’d been so far gone from the pain she’d barely been able to recognise him. And of course she knew he hadn’t been okay, but she’d shied away from those memories, and wanted to do the same, even now — the nights she’d slept alone after that stillbirth, their bed cold and that growing hollowness within her that had seemed too much for her body to hold. And those that had been worse; the nights he’d slept beside her, a sleep too heavy to stir. He’d been half-drowned with drink, to the point where he’d barely made it to the bed.

Doc’s sigh brought her back, and she blinked her eyes, finding them wet. “He knows how to be optimistic. It’s in his marrow. God knows how many times I’ve wondered how he manages, but this…” He shook his head.

Her fingers clenched together, laced over her stomach, as though she could physically keep their child safe that way, although Makino felt that she wasn’t beyond trying. She forced her breath out through her nose. “Doc, I don’t know what I’ll do if we—”

She stopped herself, unwilling to even finish the thought, let alone speak the words out loud. But, swallowing thickly, “We can’t lose her,” she said, quietly.

Doc looked at her where he was kneeling by the bunk, his large frame so big the top of her head wasn’t far above his. Around them, the clinic was quiet, save the muted conversation of passers-by in the street outside. The sunlight reaching through the half-open window warmed the clean sheets, softening the hard, sterile smell of the room along with the sea breeze.

Feeling the mattress beneath her, Makino prodded at the memories, feeling how they still hurt; the pain, and the deafening quiet after the stillbirth that had taken all her strength just to endure. There’d been no loud, healthy screams to mark the end of the ordeal, nothing but her own, still ringing in her ears, and the stillness that had followed. She hadn’t thought anything could be so quiet, save death.

But Doc’s hands had been steady through it all, not wavering so much as a second. And a doctor carried heavier burdens than most, a profession steeped in confidentiality and trust, and she forgot that, sometimes — that he kept their secrets, and carried them like his own. That he remembered their losses, in more than just the tattoos on his wrist.

“Worrying is par for the course for any parent, but don’t let him get away with being an idiot,” he told her then, firmly but not without kindness. “There are no guarantees in this world, but he’ll regret it more, keeping his distance. If anything should happen.”

She felt how the words stung, but she welcomed the reminder, this time. It wasn’t anything she could escape from, but then she didn’t try to. She was intimately familiar with that knowledge; it was why she was so fiercely determined to love their child, every day they had her.

“It’s terrifying,” Doc said, eyes glancing off the faded ink of the flower cradled in the curve of his elbow, before he lifted them back to hers. “Love is. But ultimately, it’s worth making the gamble. I’ve always believed that.” Looking at her, his smile eased into something old and knowing. “And I suspect you have, too.”

Her tears had long since spilled over; Makino felt how they gathered in the corners of her mouth as they lifted. “Yeah,” she said, feeling the truth in the little movements under her hands; the choice she’d made all those years ago. She’d never regretted making that gamble. And she wouldn’t regret doing it again, and again, however many times she was faced with it.

“Not many weeks left now,” Doc said then, as he pushed to his feet, his tone not quite cheerful, but the declaration suggested a forward movement, quietly acknowledging the old hurt that still clung to the room, but refusing to let it take precedent over the new little joy that kept asserting her presence, firmly and without apology. “I’ll have to get out my tattoo equipment. Start thinking of a new design.”

Makino felt how her smile trembled, before it got comfortable. The implication in that simple remark was a bigger comfort than anything he could have told her, any verbal assertion that everything would be okay, even as she knew Doc would never offer assurances based only on hope.

But she didn’t need hope. She already had enough of that — had enough raw, stubborn faith to see this through one more time, whatever the outcome. No, this was better; the knowledge that her daughter was already loved, and anticipated.

“Another fish?” she asked, wiping the tears from where they clung to her lashes.

His hum sat a while on his tongue, as he tugged off his gloves. “We already have one little fish,” he told her, eyes twinkling as he watched her, her hands still cradled over her stomach, feeling how the baby pushed against them, as though to say  _hey, hey, i’m coming soon! just you wait._

“And I have a feeling this one will demand something that’s uniquely hers.”

 

—

 

It was easy convincing himself she was going to be fine when he was awake, watching Makino walking around, few pains to speak of other than a slight discomfort whenever the baby kicked. Cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, she seemed the picture of health, and batted his hand away whenever he tried to steal whatever she was carrying. Stubborn, even in this.

Sleep had less mercy for him.

He jerked awake so violently he nearly tumbled off the mattress, an oath choked out as he pushed himself into a sitting position, shoving the sheets away. The temperature had left his back slick with sweat, and the bedding damp, and it took him a little too long to force his mind to accept that it wasn’t blood that had made them like that.

Heart rate easing back down to something manageable, Shanks dragged his hand over his face, compelling his breathing to settle back into something that didn’t feel like it was about to cave his chest.

Opening his eyes helped, finding the bedding rumpled but clean, although it took a moment for the screams in his head to stop, leaving a quiet so heavy it felt like it was pressing against his skull. Fisting his hand in the sheets, he took a moment just to stare at them.

No blood. But no Makino, either.

Shoving off the mattress, he grabbed his pants, not bothering with anything else as he searched out her presence, finding it with a breath, and so he wasn’t surprised when he stepped out the front door onto the porch to find her in one of the chairs, wide awake.

She looked up to meet his eyes, a question in hers, taking in the sight of him, shirtless and drenched in sweat. She had her legs curled up, her arms wrapped protectively around her stomach.

“She won’t stop moving, and I couldn’t sleep,” she explained, her smile small and delighted, even as he saw that she was tired, sleepless shadows bruising the skin under her eyes, which looked darker than usual.

She’d decided the day they’d found out she was pregnant that it would be a girl, seeming to have found some smidgen of fate in the blessing, despite the fact that they’d spent so long trying, and not-trying.

 _She’s just a little late,_ she’d told him, months ago now, but she’d been no less determined to keep her expectations. _Like her father._

Shanks was reluctant to expect anything, least of all the sex, even if all he seemed to be doing these days was expecting the worst.

“Did I wake you?” Makino asked then, smile faltering at the look on his face.

He shook his head, and moved to settle in the chair opposite. His whole body felt heavy, and there was a headache building between his brows. It took effort keeping his smile in place, and he knew he wasn’t successful, by the way her brows drew together. “Not you,” he said at length.

Her frown deepened with understanding. “Dreams again?”

His smile was fleeting. He couldn’t seem to manage anything else, his memory still stained red. “That obvious?”

“You could sleep through the revolution,” Makino told him. “You’ve slept through naval battles, and if I’m to believe Ben, you nearly slept through an earthquake once.” But despite her glibness, her smile slipped as she added, “You haven’t had a good night’s sleep since we found out.”

Shanks sighed. “No,” he admitted. “I guess I haven’t.”

“Shanks,” she said. “What are you worried about?”

He looked at her, small and fey where she was seated in the chair, her hair loose around her shoulders and the pale silk of her nightdress; supple quicksilver and fragile lace trimmings skimming her thighs. An indulgence that had been meant more for his enjoyment than her own, and with the dark width of her eyes above her cheeks it gave her an almost otherworldly look.

Not to mention, at seven months her condition was glaringly obvious, not just from the size of her stomach, but the rounder lines of her face. Everything about her was softer, and despite being tired, it was difficult reconciling how _well_ she looked, with that old fear that refused to let go.

And so, “Losing you,” he told her, honestly. Then, dropping his eyes to her stomach, “Losing her,” he said, and watched as her eyes widened at his use of the pronoun, the first since they’d found out, before he added, quietly, “Losing you both.”

There was a beat where all she did was watch him, the quiet pooling, a wide sea between them. Then she shifted in her seat, pushing out of the chair with some effort, her feet bare where she padded across the space between their chairs, before moving to climb into his lap.

It took a bit of rearranging before she’d gotten comfortable, pushing a huff past her teeth as she struggled, and his smile came, quite despite himself.

When she’d settled, Shanks felt her reaching for his hand. “Here,” Makino said, tugging her nightdress up to place it on her stomach, just above her hipbone. “Feel that?”

He did. A slight shift, and something bumping against his palm.

“She’s restless,” Makino continued. “Ace would give one, maybe two sharp kicks, but he kept mostly still. She never stops moving. It’s _exhausting_.”

She was smiling now, seeming at some small, private joy, and when she nudged his hand, he allowed her to move it. “Her head is over here,” she said gently, putting some pressure over his knuckles. He watched, enraptured by the sight, and her voice, a soft murmur now, “She’s quiet when I work. I think she likes it when I’m walking around.”

“Busy girl,” Shanks said, smile lifting at the thought, and the small flutter that rose up under his hand, as though in agreement.

“Shanks,” Makino said then, and he raised his eyes from her stomach to meet hers. “It’s okay to love her.”

The words struck, although he doubted she’d been aiming for a specific mark. It was said out of understanding, not as an accusation.

His throat felt like it had closed up, and all he could do was look at her where she sat, small hands tucked over his, and heart still so stubbornly set on hoping, even after everything.

He might have told her a lot of things then — that he was sorry; that he hadn’t been doing a good job as a father, terrified of loving a child they might lose before he had the chance to, when he should have taken whatever months he’d been given already.

He should have told her that, but when he looked at her, there was no expectation for him to explain, just that quiet understanding that knew, and didn’t demand.

“I’ve been thinking,” Makino said instead, tone quietly musing.

Fingers sketching over her stomach, Shanks watched the baby shifting under her skin. “Yeah?”

She ran a fingertip along the arch of his wrist, tracing the old scars there. “I’d like it if we could name her after my mother.”

Shanks smiled. “Emiko?”

He felt her laugh, tinged with something old and sad. “No, not directly, she would have _hated_ that. But...maybe something close. A variant of it.” He watched her fingers, curved over his, before she flattened her palm over her belly.

“Emmy,” she said then. She stifled a yawn against his collar. “Em for short.”

“Emmy?” Shanks asked, turning the syllables over on his tongue.

“Hmm,” Makino said. She sounded like she was on her way to sleep. The dark had lifted while they’d been sitting there, and a grey veil of mist had palled all the colour in their world, softening the lingering shadows and the hard morning light.

They should probably go back inside. Ace would be waking soon, and his back wouldn’t forgive him for this, if he fell asleep.

 _In a minute_ , he decided, shifting his hand until it covered Makino’s. “Emmy, huh?” he murmured, the name settling on his tongue, silver-bright like the dewdrops brought with the mist from the sea.

Makino was already asleep, but the small movements under his hand didn’t stop, their daughter having no care for the hour, or whatever worries weighed on her father’s heart, seeming content to make her presence known, and felt.

Like she’d already decided that she’d come to stay.

 

—

 

The sun was already up when Shanks woke, only to find Ben sitting the the chair beside theirs, reading the newspaper.

“You missed your morning shift at the tavern,” he said, glancing up from the paper. “Yasopp took over. There might be a mutiny later—he can’t cook to save his life. Or anyone else’s.”

Makino was still asleep, heavy in his lap, the crown of her head tucked under his chin. It took Shanks a moment to blink himself fully awake. “Ace?” he asked then. His voice sounded like he’d been drinking, a tired, sleep-roughed croak.

“Lucky took him down to the docks to fish for crabs.”

He allowed the information to settle. She was warm in his lap, her breaths heavy where they ghosted over his skin.

There was a wholly unforgiving kink in his back, asserting itself with cheerful vengeance, but it was hard to find a mind to care. It was the kindest awakening he’d had in weeks.

Then, frowning, “Do I smell breakfast?” Shanks asked.

Ben had turned his eyes back to the paper. “Someone had to feed your kid.”

“There are five plates here.”

“Some of the guys stopped by. You both slept through all of it.” He spared a lingering glance at Makino. “I’d ask what you were up to last night, but I don’t really want to know. I’m just relieved I found you dressed this time.”

Shanks grinned. “It was _one_ time.”

“Makino couldn’t look me in the eye for a week.”

“Well, you did get an eyeful,” Shanks admitted. Then with a warning look, “I’ve been very lenient about that.”

The look Ben shot him was dry. “The sight of you was punishment enough.”

“Oho! _Ouch_. And a bold-faced lie, too. I know for a fact that I look damn good naked. You should see the way she looks at me.”

Sighing, Ben shook his head, but couldn’t suffocate his smile quickly enough. “Whatever you say, Boss.” Then, glancing over the paper at Makino, “Everything okay?” he asked.

Shanks considered her, the curve of her stomach tucked against his chest and the occasional, restless flutter under his hand. The light of day always made things easier to bear, but it wasn’t a false sense of security that he grasped for now; one that would be lost again the minute he closed his eyes.

He focused on those tiny flutters, and her heavy breaths. The dewdrop that still sat on his tongue in the shape of her name.

“Yeah,” he said, a smile pressed to her hair. “I think they will be.”

 


	4. fourth verse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could you believe I just meant to write the one additional part? Yeah, me neither.

It didn’t take twenty hours, the second time.

In fact, it took altogether less than one. A blessing, he was told, but still on the half-drunk verge of a nervous breakdown, Shanks was tempted to call that a load of shit.

“How are you holding up?” Makino asked, when it was over. She was sitting up on the bed, eased back against the pillows, cheeks still flushed and her hair in damp tangles, but there was none of the exhaustion he remembered from last time; the one that had pulled her under and very nearly refused to give her back.

All in all, she looked a damn sight better than he felt, which was something along the lines of being turned inside-out and wrung like a dish-rag.

Shanks suspected he looked the part, from the small, sympathetic smile that teased at the corner of her mouth.

His sigh tried to carry a laugh. It didn’t really succeed. “I’d say I could use a drink, but I’ve already had half a bottle, and I threw it all up behind the house ten minutes ago.”

Her eyes twinkled. “You’ve cleaned up, at least.”

“Didn’t really need to. Ben held my hair back while I retched.”

Her whole being seemed to soften with her laugh. After her screaming earlier, the sound felt like a relief. “You say the most charming things sometimes.”

Taking a seat on the bed beside her, Shanks considered the baby snug in the crook of his arm, wrapped up in a blanket that looked almost as pink as she did. Unbearably lovely with her soft, dainty features, and so small he was almost afraid to move, for fear of jarring her too much.

“We have a girl,” he said, marvelling. His voice sounded like he was having the hangover of his life. Then again, it wasn’t far from how he felt.

Makino smiled, and the amused light in her eyes held silent agreement, but Shanks was too tired to stick his tongue out at her cheek. “I told you I had a feeling.”

He flicked his eyes towards her, tired but lovely despite the morning’s ordeal. It was almost unfair.

“She looks like you,” he said, and heard her laugh, still a little hoarse.

“She’s less than an hour old, Shanks. She looks like a newborn.”

He made a sound of disagreement, watching her nose, small and pert. A light dusting of pitch-black hair, clinging close to the delicate curve of her skull. He found little of himself in that face, but the thought only made his smile widen.

Makino didn’t fight him on it, only watched the baby with that tired smile. Less than two hours since she’d woken them with her intention of coming into the world, but even holding her now, it felt like he hadn’t caught up with her yet. It had been so different the last time, when he’d spent all those hours holding their son and waiting for Makino to wake, fearing all the while that she wouldn’t.

Now it was both of them, and the sun spilling through the window of their bedroom; the pale, honeyed light kinder than the one they’d woken to, at the cusp of dawn. Ben had taken Ace out, and the others would be stopping by later, but for now it was just the two of them, and their daughter.

“She made quite the entrance,” Makino said then, watching him where he sat. There was a clever quality to her smile Shanks recognised.

“One hour express delivery,” he mused, shifting his grip a little. The baby didn’t stir, seeming content in the place she’d claimed for herself. “She’ll take the world by storm, this one.”

“I think she already has,” Makino said, as his eyes were once again drawn back to that little face; the red bow of her mouth. “She’ll barge into your life unannounced and have you thank her for it.”

Shanks quirked a brow. “I'm feeling you’re hinting at something here. It wouldn’t have anything to do with me, would it?”

“You have done some memorable barging. On more than one occasion.”

“Ah, but did you ever thank me for it?”

She stuck her tongue out. “I married you.”

He laughed, the sound softened to a chuckle, compelled by the little weight in his arm. “Fair enough.”

He looked at Makino then, still awake and seeming content to be, clad in one of his old shirts, her hair dark and tumbling over her shoulders. Shanks had a sudden thought to ask if she was putting off getting some sleep for his sake.

“Hey,” Makino told him, quietly. “I’m still here.”

Shanks watched her, still smiling. “Yeah. Stubborn thing, you are. I should have given you more credit.”

She shook her head. “I know why you were worried,” she said. Her eyes left his, to settle on their daughter. “I was, too,” she admitted.

He didn’t tell her that he already knew — that her enduring optimism had been as much for his sake as for her own. It hadn’t been easy, hoping, but she’d done it anyway. And better than he had.

“You’ve always handled this better than I have,” he told her, and watched her eyes lift back to his. And there was more in that statement than just a comment on her usual grace in the face of adversity. It held each of those long months, trying not to expect the worst, and her hand taking his, the gesture as matter-of-fact as her observations, placing it on her stomach as she told him _there,_ and _she sleeps like you,_ and _she,_ always _she._

Even that morning she’d been nothing but efficient, shaking him awake, barely out of sleep herself and with a shout pushing past her teeth, pain contorting her voice beyond speech, but she’d still had the mind to tell him that someone should probably take over his opening shift at the bar.

He felt his smile lifting, remembering. He’d been struggling dividing his attention between pulling on his pants and running to fetch Doc when she’d called after him with a reminder that they had a shipment coming in that afternoon.

“You were even the one cracking jokes, this time,” Shanks said.

Makino’s smile brightened. “You looked like you needed a distraction.”

“Says the woman who was busy giving birth.”

“Someone had to lighten the mood,” she said. “You were all so serious. I had to step up.”

“And so you did. That ‘tough womb’ joke nearly did Doc in. I would have been more proud if I hadn’t been so busy trying not to throw up all over the floor.” He shook his head. “At least Ben didn’t try to drag me out of the room this time.”

“He had enough on his mind,” Makino said. “It’s been an eventful morning.”

“Yeah,” Shanks sighed. “There’ll be well-wishers showing up any minute now. Given that neither of us is opening the bar today, I guess it’s fair to expect everyone to stop by at some point. Might as well have the booze ready.”

Makino smiled at that, and Shanks frowned, watching her. She had that look on her face that told him there was something she was gearing up to say.

“So. Um,” she said then, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt, loose around her wrist. “I might have done something.”

Bemused, his smile did little to ease off the frown. “Oh yeah?”

She pressed her lips together. She knew he’d caught onto the fact that there was something, but she still seemed intent on taking her time telling him. “I made some calls, a few weeks ago.”

“Calls?”

“I thought it would be nice to invite a few people. To celebrate the birth.”

He was frowning in earnest now. “What kind of people?”

“People we know,” Makino said. Then at length, “Family.”

Their daughter sleeping, blissfully unawares, Shanks looked at Makino, taking in the expression that had never failed quite so badly at being innocent.

“I’m afraid I’m going to regret asking.”

 

—

 

“Garp.”

“Silvers.”

The pause that followed stretched so long, Shanks wondered idly if time itself had ground to a halt, or if it had decided to take its chances elsewhere, sensing a disaster afoot.

He had half a mind to do the same.

“So,” he chirped, looking between them. The baby in his arm cooed softly, the sound the only disturbance in the suddenly lead-heavy quiet. “This isn’t weird in the least.”

His bright mood had no effect on the silent stand-off, although Rayleigh’s widening grin wasn’t really helping matters. But Garp didn’t seem to have violence in mind, although he seemed to have gotten comfortable in his straight-backed posture of silent disapproval.

“I take it there’s no point asking if you two came together?” Shanks asked then. Emmy blinked up at him, and he made a face at her. She didn’t seem to know what to make of it, too young for smiling yet.

Rayleigh laughed. “Roger would have gotten a kick out of that.” He looked at Garp, still glaring back at him. “But no, our arrivals just happened to correspond.”

“Shakky with you?” Shanks asked.

Rayleigh nodded to the front door. “She’s out on your porch with Ben having a smoke.”

“Too many pirates under this roof,” Garp muttered, still glaring at Rayleigh, who only watched him back, amused.

Rocking the baby, Shanks spared an idle thought to the wisdom behind Makino’s decision to invite every branch of their extended family to their home at the same time. Especially given the fact that she’d left him to deal with it, conveniently taking the morning shift at the tavern, under the pretence of wanting to get back to work again.

 _Clever girl_ , he thought, observing the scene, which hadn’t budged an inch since Shanks had entered the room.

Before he could come up with a way to dissolve the tension that didn’t include a physical altercation, the back door to the kitchen swung open, before footsteps sounded across the threshold, small and light, and —  _“Grandpa!”_

Garp and Rayleigh both looked up — then seemed to realise that they had, although only Garp’s face conveyed suffering; Rayleigh was just grinning.

The finer points of their silent interaction went right over Ace’s head, whose exclamation had been meant to include them both, Shanks knew, and who saw nothing amiss with the situation, or with having two grandfathers who were neither related by blood, or even on the same side of the law.

Coming to a stop between them, Ace’s smile was all teeth. He’d been practicing his reading in the garden; Shanks spied a book tucked into one of his pockets, looking like it was about to fall out. There were leaves stuck in his hair, and his knees were scuffed green from the grass.

“The resemblance really is uncanny,” Rayleigh told Shanks, the observation ripe with amusement, to which Garp snorted his agreement.

But Shanks watched Garp’s eyes shift to the paperback about to fall out of Ace’s pocket, his smile lifting into an old, wry thing, and when he said quietly, “Yeah,” Shanks didn’t think Garp was referring to him.

The front door was opened then, followed by the screen-door separating the living room from the entryway, and, “Looks like there are more guests arriving,” Shakky said as she stepped inside, Ben at her heels. She nodded behind her, before her gaze landed on Ace. “Little Red,” she said, eyes curving with a smile. “You’ve grown big.” Then to Garp, those same eyes twinkling, “Monkey-chan. You’ve always been big.”

“Spider,” Garp grunted.

“You say the sweetest things,” Shakky clucked her tongue, flicking her eyes to Rayleigh. “What have you got to say to that, old man?”

Rayleigh only raised a brow. “You didn’t marry me for my sweet talking.”

She laughed, an old and intimate sound. “No,” she agreed, before her mouth pursed with a smile that had never in Shanks’ experience promised anything good. “That’s not the reason, although I shouldn’t say what was. It’s not really suited for polite company.”

“Oh jeez,” Garp sighed.

Circumventing their interaction, which was beginning to inch a little too close to uncomfortable even for him, Shanks was about to ask what Shakky had meant about _more guests_ , when the front door swung open again, this time with considerable more force, and he wasn’t given the chance to ask anything at all, as Dadan strode inside.

Dropping her duffle bag on the floor, she threw a single look around the room, taking in the people gathered, before her brows furrowed sharply. But whatever she’d been about to say, she was interrupted.

“ _Grams_!” Ace shrieked, bounding over, and her disapproval dissolved into a rough, startled laugh as she hoisted him up.

“Look at you!” she exclaimed, large hands tucked under his arms as she held him up, as though for inspection, before putting him down on his feet. She surveyed him. “All bones, but you’re tall fer your age.”

She glanced at Shanks, one brow raised. “Hair’s as ridiculous as your old man’s. Mah, guess that couldn’t be helped.”

Ace was beaming, and Shanks watched Dadan’s smile falter a bit, before she cleared her throat, seeming to collect herself. They’d talked over Den Den Mushi, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d been a baby, before Makino had left Fuschia with Rayleigh.

Dadan turned her eyes to Garp then, a glare wiping off her smile. “Well,” she said with a snort, the word dripping with derision. “Didn’t think I’d find you here. Finally found time in your busy schedule to be a grandfather?”

“Dadan,” Garp said, wary.

Dadan glared. Garp met it.

Shanks wondered how much haki it would take to knock them both out, if it came to that.

“You gonna stay mad at me forever?” Garp asked then.

“No,” Dadan said. “Just until you die.” She snorted, gaze doing a single, damning sweep across him. “Shouldn’t be long now, with how you’re looking.”

Ace frowned at that, looking to Shanks, distress brightening his features, as expressive as his mother’s. “Is grandpa dying?”

Swallowing his sigh, Shanks cut them both a firm look. “No one is dying,” he said, cheerful smile in place, but the words sharpened to an edge. “It’s all in good fun. Right?”

Dadan righted her shoulders, grumbling under her breath, but she looked chagrined, and Garp’s expression softened a bit from its unyielding disapproval. And Shanks hadn’t said anything else, but the implication was there, sitting in the room with them, a visitor in its own right.

Dadan’s animosity had a simple explanation, but it wasn’t one they were about to dredge up now, and in front of a boy who was, whether he realised it or not, intimately wrapped up in that old grief.

And Ace knew about his namesake, but not the whole story. They’d been putting it off, explaining the finer points of that particular history, because there were certain things that a six-year-old shouldn’t have to come to terms with, especially one who’d never once questioned the love and adoration of all his grandparents, pirates or otherwise. It was a story for another day; they’d all agreed on that.

Emmy made a noise then, a small gurgle, but it shook loose the tension so abruptly it was as though someone had given a shout.

Rayleigh smiled. “It seems we’ve forgotten the reason we’re here,” he said, the words amicable, but spoken with a quiet authority that took Shanks back thirty years, and for a second he almost expected to be told to get a bucket and scrub the deck clean.

But the tenseness had bled out of the room, even if a note of awkwardness lingered in its wake, and once again Shanks lamented Makino’s absence; she would have known how to smooth things over. He doubted even a round of shots would make a party out of this crowd.

“So,” Shakky spoke up then, the corner of her mouth tilting with that smile that told Shanks she wasn’t about to make the situation any better. “What are the sleeping arrangements?”

 

—

 

Tense greetings and ruffled feathers eventually smoothed into acceptance — wholly reluctant for certain parties involved, but it was hard to hold onto old grudges with such an earnestly enthusiastic six-year-old present to make you forget you even had them.

Still, Dadan made a point to avoid Garp, at least beyond what was absolutely necessary. She’d say it wasn’t personal, but then she’d be lying out of her ass.

Striding into Makino’s tavern, she snorted at the rearing glasswork lion on the front door, the flair seeming excessive for the woman who ran it, but then Red-Hair had always had a taste for drama.

The bell above her head gave a cheerful jingle, and she’d taken one step inside when she regretted it.

Garp was seated at the bar, the new baby in the crook of his arm. Dadan considered turning back, except this was the only watering hole on the island.

The need for a strong drink won out, and she pulled out a stool to take a seat beside him, ignoring the wary look he slipped her. She had a thought to point out that he looked ridiculous, the little baby in her pink blanket, but Garp looked curiously at ease.

Damn him.

Makino observed them quietly from across the counter, before sliding a glass over the bar top. Her look held a gentle warning that told Dadan she’d talked to Red-Hair about what had gone down earlier that morning.

Dadan ignored the look, downing the glass before pushing it back for a refill, and Makino complied without a word, expression demure but unapologetically knowing. Dadan ignored that, too.

A glance to her left saw that Garp wasn’t drinking. And he wasn’t looking at her now, seeming as content to leave her be as she was to ignore that he was even sitting there.

The tense quiet persisted, despite the loud and cheerful din at their backs. For such a little port, it was a surprisingly big tavern, and the extra visitors were barely felt, gathered around the tables, bandits and retired pirates mingling with an ease that remembered another bar, and another island.

Red-Hair was seated in the far back, with the old Pirate King’s first mate, and Shakuyaku. She couldn’t see Ace anywhere.

“Just one kid today?” Dadan asked then, stealing a glance at the baby girl, wide awake and peering up at the world above her; brand new, and too young to make sense of it all, the sounds and smells and people in it.

It made her think of the boy who’d once been that small, sleeping in Dadan’s arms. A different bar, and what now felt like a different life.

Garp didn’t look up from where he was watching his granddaughter. “He’s off somewhere readin’.”

Despite herself, Dadan found a smile. And a snort. “So much for following in his old man’s footsteps,” she said, one brow raised. “Bet you’re pleased he’s taking after his mother. Out of all— _your_ brats, Makino always caused the least fuss.”

She’d almost said _our_. She hoped Garp hadn’t caught it.

If he had, he didn’t let on. Instead what she got was a grunt that sounded curiously like a laugh. “I don’t know,” Garp said wryly, gaze fleeting to where Makino was busy tapping ale into a glass, a soft hum sitting under her breath. “The quiet, bookish one went and married a damn Emperor. I’d say she’s caused her own amount of fuss.”

Glancing over her shoulder at them, Makino only smiled, and Dadan found her own, settling with more ease now than it had earlier.

“He’s grown big,” she said, after a lull. “Ace.”

The corner of Garp’s mouth quirked, and he shot her a dry look. “Kids do that.”

Just as he said it, there was something vicious and ugly on the tip of her tongue, pushed to the very edge without thought, and she almost spat it in his face.

_Not all kids get to grow up._

She didn’t say it, but she knew Garp heard it, from the way his expression shifted, not into a glare, but something old and tired.

“You really not gonna forgive me before I die?” he asked then.

Dadan looked at him. And he looked _old_ , she thought, but then he’d looked old for the past ten years, hard features writ with a long life, and his scars standing out more than ever, etched deeper than even the weathered lines of his face.

She might have derived some perverse joy in that once, when her loss had still been fresh. But when she looked for her anger now she found something else; something that was also old and tired, from being angry for so long.

The little girl in Garp’s arm hummed, and Dadan looked at those large, dark eyes, staring up at them both. There was no loss in that brand new life. No anger, either. She didn’t know either of them for who they’d been, or what they’d done. She only knew them for who they were to her now.

Dadan didn’t want to be the one teaching her about grudges.

“Maybe not that long,” she said then, gruffly, and surprise lifted Garp’s grizzled brows upwards. Then with a glare, “But a little longer,” she added. “So don’t go off dyin’ yet.”

The corner of Garp’s mouth lifted. The baby cooed, small fingers bunching in the blanket. “I’ll try.”

“Damn right you’ll try,” she snapped, but the words didn’t cut with the same edge they could have. She looked at the baby again. “For this one, you’ll do a hell of a lot more than that.”

Garp looked at her, and there was a moment where she thought he’d tell her off, but all he said was, “Yeah.”

Dadan grunted, and cleared her throat. She made a gesture for Makino to bring over another glass. “Have a drink, you old dog,” she said, a ceasefire offered as the glass filled up. Not a tentative one, because Dadan didn’t know how to do tentative. It was a take-it-or-leave-it sort of offer, but she didn’t doubt that Garp caught it, as she snorted, and with a smirk, said, “You look like you need it.”

 

—

 

If an ex-marine, a legendary pirate and whole crew of bandits wasn’t enough, the birth of their daughter saw another unexpected visitor at their door.

Shanks blinked, taking in the figure on their porch, a shadow having slipped between the trees, so spectacularly at odds with the white flowers and the cheerful notes of the wind-chime hanging under the awning, nudged by the breeze. “Are you lost?”

Mihawk lifted a brow. “I received an invitation.”

“You—wait, _what?_ ”

“Makino called,” Mihawk said, as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Ma—hold on, I’ve known you almost thirty years and you still call me Red-Hair, but she’s _Makino_ now?”

Mihawk breezed right past his incredulity, offering a glance to the baby in his arm. “You have my congratulations.”

Shanks just stared at him. “I’m sorry, this is a little more than I bargained for when I got out of bed at four this morning. She _called_ you?”

“She calls me on a regular basis.”

His mouth worked. “I don’t know what to do with this information.”

“Her calls are perfunctory,” Mihawk said simply. “She does not waste time with idle chatter.”

“But she _calls_ you.”

“Yes.”

Emmy made a noise then, a soft little coo, and Shanks looked down, smile stretching for no other reason than the sight of that tiny, scrunched-up face. She was watching him back, her little mouth working, busy munching on her own fingers.

“I take it she is well?” Mihawk asked then, making him look up. “She gave the impression that you had concerns.”

The look Shanks offered him now was dry. “I’m pretty sure the births of my children rank as the most traumatic experiences of my life. And I lost my arm to a sea king.”

Mihawk only looked at him, and Shanks sighed. “She’s fine,” he said, foregoing humour for something more earnest. “It was easier this time.” He looked at the baby, a small sound of distress rising into the quiet, muffled by her fingers. He rocked her a little. “You didn’t take twenty hours, did you, swallow?”

“Why you insist on epithets for all your children remains beyond me," Mihawk deadpanned.

Shanks stuck his tongue out. “Says the guy called Hawk-Eyes.”

“A moniker I was given, not one I invented.”

“If you say so.”

Mihawk was still watching him with that wholly blank look, and Shanks didn’t bother trying to temper his grin.

“Here,” Shanks said then, and before Mihawk could protest, he’d handed the baby over. “I need to stretch my arm.” Drawing back, he surveyed the result, brows lifting in time with a shit-eating grin. “ _Wow_ , you look awkward. I wish I had a camera.”

He was subjected to a withering stare, but Mihawk made no move to hand the girl back. Sinking down into one of the chairs, Shanks watched his old rival, standing still as a shadow, and as rigid as though he was preparing to launch into a fighting stance.

He thought he might have managed a laugh, if he wasn’t so tired.

“You can sit down, you know,” Shanks said instead.

He got a wholly unamused look for that, but Mihawk took a seat, seeming to have reclaimed some of his dignity. It was still a hilarious picture; the tiny baby, and the man who Shanks had always said looked like he had one foot in the grave, if only for the drama.

Emmy was quiet, blinking up at her new adversary, and Shanks watched Mihawk return the gesture, sharp gaze unflinching.

“She’s cute, right?” Shanks asked. “Bet it’s been a long time since you met someone who could look you in the eye. She’ll be bold, that one, mark my words.”

The corner of Mihawk’s mouth tugged upwards. He was still looking at the baby. “Somehow, I do not doubt it.” Then, flicking his gaze up, “Does she have a name?”

Shanks smiled. “Emmy.”

Mihawk made a sound of understanding. “Named for her late grandmother?”

Shanks’ smile dropped. “How in the world do you know that?”

“As I told you, we speak on occasion. The subject has come up.”

“You have never once shown any interest in _my_ origins.”

Mihawk ignored him. “Makino gave the impression that she was a formidable woman.”

His smile was back now, full force. “You’re so full of bullshit. She has you wrapped around her little finger, huh? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were making a move on my wife.”

“Perhaps you should count yourself lucky that I am not. There would be no competition.”

Shanks frowned at that. “You know, I honestly can’t tell if you’re being serious or not. You’re freaking me out a little.”

A small smirk graced his old rival’s mouth. “You should never get complacent in any marriage.”

“God. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d kick your ass for that insinuation _alone_ ,” Shanks laughed, rubbing at his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night.

He looked over at Emmy, her sounds small and delightful. She’d been screaming her lungs out just an hour ago; he could still hear it if he concentrated, like a muted ringing in his ears that had come to stay.

“She was so quiet when she was born,” Shanks sighed, suffocating a yawn with his hand. “Barely even cried. Now it’s like a house of horrors here. The cutest horror you’ll ever see, but that won’t let you sleep any better.”

Mihawk watched the baby, taking in the dark tufts of hair dusting her head, and the delicate nose. Her mother’s features, and he meant to point it out, but Shanks was already asleep, a soft snore drifting into the summer-touched air, slipping under the gentle sound of the wind-chime stirring the quiet.

“Something tells me you will give him trouble,” he told her dryly, watching as she blinked up at him with those bottomless eyes.

He snorted softly, and shifted his grip, easing her into the curve of his arm. She hadn’t taken her eyes off his once, seeming wholly unapologetic in her shameless observation. He allowed his mouth to lift a fraction.

“I shall be glad to see it.”

 

—

 

Makino found them like that later, Shanks still snoring, and Mihawk holding the baby.

He’d removed his hat, and those sharp eyes swept upwards, meeting hers. The look on his face told her she wasn’t doing a good enough job hiding her amusement. Then again, she wasn’t exactly trying.

She looked at Shanks, sprawled in the chair opposite, down for the count. His hair was escaping the cord at his nape, and he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt.

In comparison, Mihawk looked regally at ease, back straight and the baby held like he’d done it a hundred times before, as though there was nothing at all amiss with the tableau.

Makino took a moment just to observe it, and the long years that preceded it, remembering a shadow thrown across the floor of her bar and _would you call that decision foolhardy or courageous?_

“Wine?” she asked then, smiling.

“Please.”

“Would you like me to take her?”

Mihawk looked down at the baby. Makino saw she was peering back. “No,” he said at length. “Have your rest.” He looked at Shanks, a soft snort escaping him. “You appear to be in short supply, given his state.”

“Oh, this isn’t the most indecent I’ve seen him in public,” Makino said breezily. “Count your blessings that he remembered to put on a shirt at all.”

“You at least seem to have managed some semblance of presentability.”

She laughed. “Careful. If he decides that’s a compliment, he’ll think you’re making a move.”

A small smirk tugged at one corner of that severe mouth, as though at a private joke. The baby hadn’t taken her eyes off him once, Makino saw.

“This one was long anticipated,” Mihawk said at length.

Leaning against the doorway, Makino watched the baby, her dark eyes and chubby little arms. It was always strange, adjusting to not being pregnant after so many months, but this hollowness was a different one; kinder, with that warm little shape to tuck against her breast instead.

She hadn’t told Mihawk about the ones they’d lost, although she wasn’t surprised that he might have deduced as much. And there was no invitation for her to speak about it now; just a quiet remark that held understanding, without demand.

And so, “She was,” Makino said simply, and left it at that.

Mihawk said nothing else, but then their particular friendship hadn’t been forged with an excess of words.

Smiling, Makino turned back to the house to root out a bottle of wine, leaving him with her daughter; the show of trust no less easy, and no less significant, than the heavy snores that followed her off the porch.

 

—

 

Not everyone made it over for the birth. Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t find other means of conveying their congratulations.

“What’s this?” Shanks asked, looking at the parcel sitting on their kitchen table.

Makino looked up. She had their daughter at the breast. “Yasopp brought it over earlier,” she said. “It’s from Luffy.”

Shanks lifted the card, brows furrowing with bemusement. “Godfather?” He looked at her. “When did we make him her godfather?”

She smiled. “From the looks of things, just now.”

He shook his head, grinning. “That cheeky brat. First it’s our fridge, then it’s our kid. Who does he think he is?”

“The Pirate King?” Makino supplied. The baby made a noise of contentment, and she cradled her hand around the back of her head, a fleeting caress offered to the dark down of her hair.

Shanks was looking at the parcel, considering. It gave no indication of what might be inside. “I was going to ask ‘how bad can it be?’, but then I remembered who we’re dealing with.”

Still smiling, Makino craned her neck to watch as he unwrapped it, to extract what was inside.

It was a small knife, barely big enough to fit into the cup of his palm. A sharp, delicate blade and a polished wooden handle engraved with various sea creatures.

There was a note attached, bearing a cheerful, sloppy scrawl that couldn’t belong to anyone else:

_to the baby, for when u are older. don’t stab yourself in the face! :)_

Clutching the knife, Shanks laughed so hard he had to sit down.

 

—

 

_“What the hell is this I’m hearing about another kid?”_

“You tell me. How did you even hear about it?” Shanks asked the Den Den Mushi. “I didn’t tell you.”

The expression looking back at him was livid, the snail’s eyes bulging, and Buggy’s voice was shrill when it cut across the line,  _“I heard it from Straw-Hat, you inconsiderate bastard!”_

“Oh! Right. Yeah, it figures he would blab about that.”

_“This is so like you! And then you call, months later. Who do you think you are?”_

“You called _me_ , Buggy,” Shanks said.

_“S-shut up, I did not!”_

“What? You totally did!”

_“Did not!”_

“Did too!”

_“Did not!”_

“You did! Why the hell would I call _you_?”

The snail made an ear-splitting sound, and Shanks winced. _“See, it’s shit like that I’m talking about! Why are you always so damn aloof? It’s annoying as hell.”_

“You’re annoying,” Shanks said, an old, knee-jerk reaction prompting the comeback before he had the chance to realise just how ridiculous it was.

Then again, Buggy didn’t seem inclined to aspire to anything better. _“Not as annoying as you are.”_

“Oh no, I think you’ve got me beat there.”

_“Pretty sure I haven’t.”_

“No need to be humble, Buggy. Stake your claim.”

He got a scoff for that. _“You wouldn’t know humble if it bought you a drink.”_

“At least humble would buy me a drink.”

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

“I’m sorry, was that not clear? I could spell it out for you. It begins with r-e-d—”

 _“Shanks, you bastard!”_ Buggy shrieked. _“Don’t make me come over there!”_

“You’re not invited!”

_“Exactly, because you’re an inconsiderate shit!”_

Shanks had a retort ready, but a cleared throat somewhere to his left found Makino in the doorway, the baby in her arms and an expression on her face that couldn’t seem to decide if it was amused or exasperated.

“Forty-four years old,” she said simply, before turning to walk away. Shanks resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. It wouldn’t exactly help his case.

There was another grumble from over the line, followed by a lengthy pause. Shanks wondered if he’d hung up, when Buggy cleared his throat and asked, _“So, uh. It’s a girl? T-that’s what Straw-Hat said. Not like I asked or anything.”_

Despite their earlier bickering, Shanks smiled. And he knew the Den Den Mushi conveyed it, when Buggy let out a string of curses for his insufferable attitude, but, “Yeah,” he said. “Now are you going to keep shouting, or do you want to hear about her?”

He got a vulgar oath for that, and now he did stick his tongue out, but, _“Fine,”_ Buggy relented. _“If you insist.”_

Shanks was about to point out just who it was doing the insisting, the impulse a juvenile thing that brought to mind years of similar, petty arguments, but he curbed his tongue. Maybe it was time things changed. They were grown men, as old as those stupid arguments, and then some. They didn’t need to squabble like teenagers anymore.

“Her name is Emmy,” Shanks said. “She’s three months old. She likes to chew on her fingers.”

Buggy made a sound that tried to be a grunt of polite disinterest. _“Kids are loud.”_

Shanks’ laugh held agreement—and a fierce longing for sleep. “They are that.”

 _“Serves you right,”_ Buggy said with a snort. _“You’re the loudest person I know.”_

“Yeah, joke’s on me. I’d appreciate the irony more if my hearing wasn’t about to give out. She screams like she’s out for vengeance.”

He looked towards the kitchen doorway. Makino was moving about, the baby snug in her sling as her mother worked. She was humming under her breath, that old, lewd song about the lascivious sailor and all his conquests that had about forty different euphemisms in it (twelve verses in total, two of which were Shanks’ own contributions; one of his better legacies). Their girl didn’t make a sound.

“She’s unfairly cute, though,” Shanks said, smiling.

_“Yeah? You sure she’s yours?”_

“Shut up. I’m adorable.”

 _“You’re a lot of things,”_ Buggy muttered. _“I pity your kids. And your wife. Does she know you’re irritating as hell?”_

“I’m hanging up now.”

_“Not if I hang up first!”_

Well. Grown men or not, maybe some things didn’t have to change _too_ much.

 

—

 

Even if she hadn’t lived her life on it, Makino was no stranger to the sea. She’d grown up by the water, collecting seashells by the dozen, sand between her toes and her skirt hiked up. She’d never ventured far, preferring her feet planted firmly in the seabed, the water’s caress around her ankles pulling gently, but never too hard.

The sea had always been there, trickling through the veins of her life. It had given, and taken, and given again. It was part of her, same as any sailor or pirate.

“I can feel you ogling me, wife.”

Shanks was standing in the surf, the water reaching to his waist, the surface clear under a sky bleeding white with heat. He’d forgone his shirt, skin darkened by the sun flecked with beads of seawater, running in patterns down his broad back.

Emmy was sitting on his arm, small feet kicking at the water, her delight as bright as the laugh bubbling out of her, and her little sun hat pulled low over her brow.

Makino had a hard time dividing her attention.

By the grin on his face, Shanks was well aware of her troubles. “Sure you don’t want to come in the water?”

She pressed her lips together, hiding a smile. She was seated on the beach, at a safe distance from the water, the sand warm under the blanket and the discarded paperback beside her forgotten in favour of a more compelling vista.

“I’m good,” she called back. “Just enjoying the view.” Her eyes curved under the shade of her palm. “The sea looks lovely.”

She caught the devilish lilt to his smile, even from some ways off. He’d turned towards her, the water sloshing around his hips. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you over you eyeballing me like a piece of meat.”

The baby made a small, impatient noise, and he lowered her until her feet touched the water again, eliciting a happy giggle that filled up the air. Shanks laughed, lifting her back up, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“She’ll run to the water first thing when she learns to walk,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Makino.

She smiled, watching their little girl, safe on her father’s arm but with eager feet kicking at the air above the water, seeking the surface, like she couldn’t get enough now that she knew the feeling. But the sea was quiet, and gentle in her attentions, the water cold but still and clear, hiding no secrets from that little heart.

Above, a small flight of swallows dipped, black streaks of ink against the parchment-white sky. Makino observed them, their too-quick movements and delicate wings, before another little laugh drew her eyes back to the water.

And she might have been worried that the sea should take her, today or another day, but it wasn’t worry she felt, watching Shanks wading through the shallow surf, movements certain, and at ease with water on all sides, even with his daughter perched precariously above it.

She closed her eyes against the sun, breathing in the sea and letting it fill her lungs. An old respect in the distance she kept from it, but there was trust, too; for the sea to pay her dues, for what she took. If she stole her daughter’s heart, Makino knew it would give her back, one day.

That bubbly little laugh chased back to the shore, followed by her father’s louder mirth, and with both sounds filling her ears, Makino laid back against the blanket and slept.

 

—

 

“Looks like mommy fell asleep,” Shanks said, eyes turned to the beach behind him, and the small shape of her curled up on the blanket. “That will teach her, once the tide turns.”

He looked at their baby girl, cooing gently where she sat on his arm. She had her fingers shoved in her mouth, as seemed to be a curious preference. He didn’t know if Ace had been similarly occupied at that age; had missed most of his first year, but he savoured the small details now, almost greedily.

“What about it, hmm?” he asked her, bouncing her a little. “Should we wake her before the sea gets her?”

She giggled, her bare toes curling, droplets of water still clinging to her small feet. It was a feat wrapping his head around how much she’d grown already, from that tiny little fairy that had slept in his arm that first, turbulent morning she’d chosen for her arrival into the world. And she was still so small, almost unbearably so, but her features were more distinct now, her personality beginning to come through, showing in wide, toothless little smiles and that _laugh_. He’d heard his own described as loud, and lovely by many, but nothing beat his daughter’s, Shanks was certain.

Looking up at him, gummy smile stretching beneath the shade of her little sunhat, he could so easily imagine how she’d be, a few years from now; beautiful like her mother but wild and laughing, sea-longing in her soul and saltwater in her veins, in her dark hair.

“You’d love the sea to carry you off, I think,” Shanks murmured, nuzzling his nose against a soft cheek, and luring another giggle into the air with the scuff of his beard. And tightening his grip around her, he felt suddenly, fiercely glad there were still years left until that happened. Years where she’d be the way she was now, small and soft and laughing on his arm.

He looked out at the sea, a quiet mirror under clear skies, the water tenderly stroking the shoreline. They’d had a storm a few days ago; he remembered how it had reached across the island, to howl under the rafters of their house, but there was barely a memory left of that aggressive lament, the soothing hush of the water lulling now, the little girl on his arm as much as her mother.

A glance at the beach behind him found Makino still sleeping. Ace was fishing for crabs a little ways off, sprawled on his stomach over the rocks. Their son had always seemed more comfortable on land than off it, content with the seas in his books, and preferring to hear seafaring tales told to him than to dream of living them himself.

Shanks had a sense the same wouldn’t be the case with their youngest, cooing at the water, little heart enthralled in that way sailors have sung and spoken of for centuries. And he knew that feeling — had grown up with it, the innate restlessness that tugged like the moon on the tide. The sea would come for their daughter, Shanks knew, one day in the future.

And there was an acute sense of irony in it, he found, suddenly faced with the prospect of being the one left behind to wait.

“You’ll stay land-bound a little while longer,” Shanks told her, kissing her nose and earning that gurgling little laugh. “For your old dad’s heart, yeah?”

His answer was the eager kicking of her feet, seeming more a cheeky retaliation than anything else, but she couldn’t get anywhere—was still so young she needed him to carry her, to hold her above the water and out of danger—and there was some comfort to be found in that.

The sea would have to wait a little longer. That volatile heart that had stolen so many others could endure a few more years, before his own was ready to surrender the little one beating a rabbit’s pace of excitement against his chest, with the water in her sights.

 

—

 

Their daughter was six months old, when the sea came back to claim the man who’d left her.

“A Pirate Summit?”

Makino was seated on the sofa, her legs tucked up. The sun had dipped beyond the rise some time ago, and a fire crackling in the hearth was trying to ward off the slight chill that had crept into the evening.

Her question came to settle, fitting itself in the space between them, and the silence that had pooled in the wake of his earlier announcement.

“Luffy’s allies,” Shanks said. “He asked if I wanted to make an appearance.”

He watched the worried slant to her brow deepening, and the slight purse of her mouth that spoke volumes, even if all she asked was, “Is it serious?”

Shanks considered her where she sat, their daughter snuggled in her arms. Ace was asleep, two rooms over. This home was the heart of all his choices, but even if he’d chosen a quiet life, it didn’t mean the world beyond their island was any kinder than it had been when he’d left it.

“Not any more than usual, I don’t think,” he said at length, moving to take a seat beside her on the sofa. Emmy craned her neck, and he reached out to touch her nose. She’d tucked her lower lip into her mouth, sucking on it. “But there’s been some stirrings between the Government and Dragon’s guys. Luffy might be preparing for it. It would be the smart thing to do.”

Makino’s frown deepened further. “Do you think he would get involved?”

Shanks was quiet a moment. Then, “It depends. He’s not the for-the-greater-good kind of pirate. But it’s his old man, and his brother.” He shrugged. “He might.”

“What about you?” she asked.

He looked at her. “I retired.”

“Would that stop you?”

“If whatever trouble they’re stirring up could reach us here, no,” Shanks said, not even half a beat missed. Not with the two of them, and their son sleeping. “It wouldn’t.”

He saw her eyes glance downwards, settling on the scar across his chest, the wound healed, but the reminder had stayed, of the battle he almost hadn’t come back from. And Blackbeard might be long dead, but there were other dangers on the sea these days. The Government was only one of them, and not all pirates answered to the reigning king. If another war broke out…

“What do you think I should do?” Shanks asked her. He looked at their daughter, finding her eyes looking back at him, forever entranced by what was going on above her narrow field of vision; the world she only knew as four safe walls, and the quiet island they were built on. She didn’t know the sea yet, or the world beyond the horizon.

The thought that there should ever be a day where that would change, and not on her own terms, was what made his decision for him.

From the expression on Makino’s face, Shanks knew she’d come to the same conclusion, and, “It’s Luffy,” she said. “He wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. He’s always respected your advice.”

Shanks sighed a laugh. “Yeah.”

“How long would you be gone?”

Shanks looked at the Den Den Mushi across the room, silent now. Luffy hadn’t offered specifics, but he could wager a fair guess. The voyage alone would take at least a week, if they had the weather and the waves on their side.

“A few weeks,” he said at length. “Maybe longer. Depends on what goes down at that summit. Most likely, there’ll just be talking. Or an attempt, anyway. This _is_ Luffy.”

He saw her look down at the baby, that little head of dark hair seeming stark against her mother’s skin. Just six months old, and once, that amount of time had meant nothing. After ten years, a few months apart had been _easy_.

But he knew now, how much could happen in just a few months. How much she’d grow, and how much Ace would. He’d missed a lot of firsts, with their son. The thought of missing out on them a second time was almost enough to make him say _no_.

But  _it’s Luffy_ , Makino had said, and there was truth in that. The kid who wasn’t theirs, but who came by to raid their fridge like he was; who’d declared himself their daughter’s godfather, with all that entailed. And maybe that mattered more than blood. Maybe it always had.

“Okay,” Makino said. Simple as that.

But then that had always been the way of things, with them.

 

—

 

It hadn’t taken them long to make the decision for him to go, but the actual departure didn’t come with a shred of the same ease, Shanks found, standing at the docks and watching the crew preparing the ship for sailing.

Not his crew, at least not barring Ben. They were leaving with a merchant ship, although he could spot Ben overseeing the preparations, slipping into an old role with an ease that made Shanks shake his head with a smile. Odd, how some things never changed.

It was a beautiful day, a slight chill cutting the air, but the sky above stretched, seeming as endless as the sea where it bent from horizon to horizon, only a pale cluster of clouds gathering along the line in the distance.

There was a good wind, and he could feel that old anticipation brimming within him at the thought of stepping aboard, that same wind filling the sails. That the ship wasn’t his didn’t matter, with sea under his feet again.

But his excitement had a bitter taste, with the little hand clutching his, the desperate grip so at odds with his son’s sombre quiet, greeting his departure with stubborn dignity. A lot like his mother, that way.

Speaking of—“It’s been a while since we did this,” Makino said, and Shanks turned to find her observing the preparations. Emmy was awake, little head cushioned against her shoulder, sucking on her fingers.

“Yeah,” he said, looking up to meet her eyes. He tried for a smile. “I don’t know why I thought it would be easier this time.”

A call from further down the docks announced the anchor being raised, and Shanks saw Makino’s mouth press together, reluctant acceptance writ with deep lines in her face. A familiar setting, but this departure felt different than the ones that had once been par for the course for them.

The little hand in his tightened its grip, almost in retaliation, and Shanks kneeled down until their eyes were level, the slight jut of that lower lip tempting a genuine smile. Quiet like his mother, but that pout was all Shanks.

“Hey, little fish,” he said. “Sorry I can’t take you with me. Next time, yeah?”

Ace pressed his lips together, and answered with a tight nod. “You’ll meet the Pirate King?” he asked.

Shanks smiled. “In all his glory.”

“And Pirate Hunter Zoro?”

“If he doesn’t sleep through the whole thing.”

“Who else is gonna be there?”

Shanks hummed, making a show of considering the question, a father’s delight found in the way those dark eyes brimmed with barely-contained anticipation. “We’ll have to see who shows up.” He poked his nose. “You know, your old man used to be pretty famous.”

The look he got for that was dubious, those little features that were so like his own drawing together in an expression that put his mother’s best to shame. “Uncle Ben said all you did was camp and drink.”

“Uncle Ben should be careful of what he says, or he’s going overboard,” Shanks muttered.

Ace looked at him, head cocked to the side in consideration now. “Were you really famous?”

Shanks had to smile at that, his mother’s heart that was so wonderfully pragmatic, but still full of that contradictory, ever-ready eagerness to be enthralled by tales of fancy.

“Some things might have been a little exaggerated, but I made the papers now and again,” he said, finding his eyes widening at the suggestion of infamy. “How about when I come back, I’ll tell you all the stories? The real versions, not what Ben’s been trying to pass off as truth. I don’t even want to know what he’s been telling you, but I’ll set the record straight.”

Ace’s smile held little of its earlier bleakness, the prospect of his return seeming to have wiped his sorrows clean off his face. “Okay.”

Shanks’ laugh was soft. “Okay, huh? Just like that?” He looked up at Makino. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

Another call from the ship, and Shanks glanced over his shoulder. They were preparing to lift the gangway, and Ben was already waiting on deck.

Looking back at Ace, it was to find two small arms thrown around his neck, and he was reminded of the last time he’d said goodbye, when he’d been small enough to fit into the crook of his arm.

Fingers tangling in his hair, so unruly he had half a mind to suggest it needed a cut soon, Shanks kissed the crown of his head, before rising back to his feet, finding Makino waiting. Emmy had stopped sucking on her own fingers in favour of her mother’s braid, the thick coil of it worried between two small hands.

“Come back to us,” Makino said, and it had been so long since he’d last heard those words, for a moment all Shanks could do was look at her. A different island, but the same girl asking, and there was a second where he had the sudden, staggering fear that it might be the last time he saw either.

He kissed her the way he felt, cradling the back of her head and sinking his fingers into her hair, needing her as close as he could have her. Theirs wasn’t a marriage of taking things for granted, not time or touches or anything else, and the past few years hadn’t changed that. And it hadn’t changed the reluctance that grabbed him, at the thought of letting her go (he _was_ still a pirate, prone to selfish choices, and she was the most selfish choice he’d ever allowed himself).

She laughed first, at that unhinged desperation that belonged to young, foolish people who didn’t know how to be apart, but he felt her responding in turn, and despite her mirth, the trembling slant of her mouth was telling, before he felt her tears spilling over; the ones she’d been holding back all morning.

Drawing back, he kissed her nose, her cheekbones, the corner of her eye where her tears beaded her lashes, pleased when he felt her smile lifting, and her sob when it fell was wrapped with a laugh.

A touch to their daughter’s nose, those big, dark eyes blinking up at him, and when she curled her fingers towards him Shanks tucked his own around them, a kiss pressed to a small, sticky hand that had her grinning, so easily delighted by his antics.

Then, before he could change his mind, he’d turned and set off down the docks towards the ship, waiting in the water with the sea stretching endless behind it.

He didn’t look back.

 

—

 

That first night, she didn’t sleep well.

In fact, she didn’t sleep at all, long hours spent staring up at the ceiling of their bedroom and trying to recall the last time she’d slept without him. She couldn’t remember.

It didn’t help that she was awake with her regrets, sitting like a weight on her chest and dragging her awake whenever she was close to drifting off.

She’d first chalked the nausea up to worry about his departure. She hadn’t thought it might be anything else, and certainly not _that_ , so soon after their daughter, and when they’d been trying for so long before that. But it had come to her a few hours after he’d left, finishing up her closing routines at the tavern when she’d suddenly stopped, a small curl of nausea followed by realisation, not a startled, hopeful thing like it had been with Emmy, but sinking like a stone in still waters.

She’d been thinking about it ever since, checking on her children, and retiring to bed, the mattress feeling large and cold without his body to warm it.

It might be nothing. It might very well just be that she was worried. It _was_ soon, even if it wasn’t unheard of.

But…it might be something. They hadn’t exactly been careful; hadn’t had a reason to think they needed to be that.

Her thoughts continued, an exhausting, circular pattern that left her head spinning, and she’d never longed for sleep more, even during those first few weeks with their daughter awake at all hours and determined that they should be as well.

Soft footsteps sounded in the corridor then, that one plank creaking under a small weight, before a murmur slipped through the quiet, “Mom?”

“Hey,” Makino said, pushing herself up. “Can’t sleep?”

Ace shook his head, and when she held out her arms he came, crawling onto the mattress to settle against her. And it had been years since he’d last done this, but she kept from pointing that out, claiming the small comfort offered, and the memories it brought, of the months it had been just the two of them in this house, and she’d lie awake waiting for the Den Den Mushi to ring, his little weight on her chest.

“Worried about your dad?” she asked, reaching out to push some of his hair out of his face. It had grown a little unruly, curling under his ears, the way Shanks’ tended to do when the weather was humid.

He nodded. She couldn’t see his face clearly through the dark, but she could imagine it; that wonderfully grave expression, exaggerated with feeling.

“Was it true, what he said?” he asked then. His eyes were as dark as she’d ever seen them. “Was he really a famous pirate?”

Despite her earlier worries, Makino found a smile. “Oh, yes. A real terror of the sea.”

“He doesn’t look like it.”

She poked his nose; traced a fingertip over his cheek, smooth and unmarred. “No? He has the scars to show for it.”

His mouth twisted, and she watched as his brows furrowed. “I guess. But he’s _—_ ” He stopped, frowning.

Makino smiled. “What?”

“Dad’s kind.”

Her heart ached, but the warmth in her chest softened it to something she could bear. “He is that,” she agreed. “But kindness isn’t a weakness. Your dad can be pretty terrifying, if he puts his mind to it.”

She smiled then, a private thing shared in the dark. “You’ve seen those ugly yellow pants.”

“The ones with the jolly rogers on them?”

“Mhm. They’ve given me plenty of nightmares.”

She caught his smile, full of cheek; the one that was Shanks’, wide and bright with laughter, and looking like it had been shaped from the sound.

She knew that grin, and she saw when it softened, his expression uncertain, even as the smile held onto a small, stubborn faith. Hers, that. “But he’s strong?”

Makino kissed his cheek, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. He tucked his head against her shoulder. “One of the strongest.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

She had an answer to that. It came without thought. “He always comes back.”

Ace fell quiet, seeming to accept her belief for what it was. And that was hers, too. That enduring, faithful little heart.

“Mom?”

“Hm?”

“You were never a pirate, right?”

She hid her smile against his hair. “No,” she said. “I’ve always been a barmaid.”

Ace hummed. She thought he sounded like he was on his way to sleep. “I think you would have made a good one,” he murmured around a yawn. “You can be really scary, too.”

Her laughter came without warning, but then Shanks had always been able to make her laugh, no matter the situation. It would only figure that his son should manage the same, and with the same ease. It filled her whole, followed by a feeling so fierce it was hard to breathe past it; the same she’d felt the morning she’d held her son for the first time, brought back from the brink of death but thinking, with staggering certainty _I’d do it again. and again and again._

Ace was asleep. And he slept like her, quietly and without moving, taking up only the space he needed, although the tight grip of his arms around her was anything but reserved.

Makino didn’t sleep, but it helped some, running her fingers through his hair, and letting the sound of his heartbeat fill the silence.

She didn’t think about her regrets—didn’t have any room left for them within her, her chest still full of laughter, and that fierce warmth that could never once regret, either of her children or the choices she’d made.

She’d talk to Doc in the morning.

 

—

 

He’d been gone less than three days when the Den Den Mushi rang.

 _“Hey,”_ came her voice, slipping soft and chiming over the line.

“Hey,” Shanks laughed, holding the receiver. “Missed me that much, huh? Ben owes me money. He was sure I was going to be the first to cave.”

He heard her answering laugh, and frowned. It sounded strained. “Everything okay?” he asked.

 _“Yeah,”_ Makino said. _“Everything is—well, I have some...news.”_

His frown deepened, and he felt something like unease curl in his gut. Ignoring it, he tried a light approach. “Are we talking ‘Ace accidentally set the kitchen on fire’ news, or ‘in your absence I actually went and renamed our bar ‘The Rapidly Greying Lion’?”

His attempted humour had little effect, and there was a tense beat of silence. Shanks heard her draw a breath — saw the Den Den Mushi do them same, before her voice came through, and,  _“Neither,”_ Makino said. _“I was going to wait until you came back, but...but then I decided against it. I thought I might give you a warning, this time.”_

“Warning?” Shanks asked, smiling now. If it had been something truly serious, she would have been more upfront. “Sounds ominous.”

Then a thought hit him, and wiped his smile clean off. “Wait—  _this_ time?” His heart stilled in his chest, and it took him a moment to locate his voice again. “Makino, you’re not—”

The line was silent. It felt like the longest second in his life, but then, _“Yes.”_

He had to sit down, and his first attempt nearly had him sitting flat on his ass on the floor, before he scrambled for the chair.

 _“I can’t be more than eight weeks, if that,”_ she was saying then, the words rushing out. _“I haven’t told anyone else, but I thought I’d tell you in advance. Just—_ _just in case.”_ And before he could comment on that last remark, _“Not that there’s any reason to worry! At least Doc doesn’t seem to think so.”_

“It’s too soon,” Shanks said, shaking his head, even though he knew the Den Den Mushi didn’t convey that. “Em’s not even a year old.”

_“I know.”_

“You—”

 _“Shanks,”_ Makino said, and drew a shuddering breath. She didn’t sound like she was crying, only tired. _“I know.”_

He scrambled for something to say. It was hard, when he couldn’t even decide what he was feeling. “Do you want me to come back?” he asked then.

 _“No,”_ she said, without hesitation. _“I just called to tell you, so you know. But there’s no reason anything should go wrong.”_

“Makino—”

 _“Shanks,”_ she said, firmly but kindly. _“I’m fine. The baby is fine. And you’ll be back long before the birth.”_

Her assurances did little to ease his worries, but he refrained from pointing out that it wasn’t whether or not he’d make it back in time for the birth that worried him. No, what he thought about was waking to find her crying, and one more loss to add to their growing list. The thought of having her endure it alone, if something happened while he was gone—

 _“Are you—would you rather I hadn’t told you?”_ Makino asked then. She sounded uncertain now.

“No,” he said, and it was his turn not to hesitate. “No, I’m glad you did. I just—” He laughed. It didn’t exactly sound convincing. “I don’t think I’ve ever handled this news gracefully.”

He heard her laugh at that. The Den Den Mushi’s eyes curved at the corners. _“Are you sitting down? I should probably have told you to.”_

“I am now, but it was a close call.”

 _“Well,”_ she said. _“You know I’m always looking for ways to catch you off guard.”_

Shanks laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re a few points ahead of me where that’s concerned. I’ll have to step up my game.”

_“Hmm. Well if you come home pregnant, you’ll have a chance to regain some of them.”_

“I _have_ been a little moody lately,” he said. “Ben claims he’s getting cabin fever dealing with me. I think the past few years have made him complacent, having you to relieve him.”

The snail smiled, and he imagined the real thing, sitting with growing ease on her face.

He thought then, about what it would have been like, having her with him. The things he could have shown her that he’d always wanted to — like how it felt standing on deck under the stars, or how you had to learn to follow the movements of the ship; that each ship sat differently on the waves, but that learning how was part of the fun.

They’d squeeze into the too-small bunk of his cabin, like they had when they’d been younger, when they’d returned to Fuschia and she’d stolen aboard the ship to spend the night, fitting herself between his body and the wall, a lovers’ knot of arms and legs, and her laughter stifled against his chest, attempting stealth but failing under his touches.

He stopped himself from saying it, knowing it wasn’t likely to soften the note of longing in her voice. Rather the opposite.

They spoke a little longer, about things that didn’t weigh so heavily with uncertainties —their bar, and their children. That she missed him. She was trying to keep the mood light, the shy, circling approach to a racy suggestion, and he couldn’t have held back his grin now if he’d tried, at her now-stuttering attempt at implying what she had planned for his return.

“You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that I think it would scar the poor snail,” Shanks told her, “I’d suggest forgoing the wait altogether and doing it over the phone. There’s no one around on my end.”

He heard her laugh, loose now of the tightness that had been in it earlier. _“Speak for yourself. I’ve got a bar that’s about to fill up, and I can’t just sneak off into the storeroom without anyone noticing.”_

“You sure?” he purred. “You know I always make it worth your while. A little distance shouldn’t be a problem.”

There was a pause, and despite the thoughts still weighing on him, his grin widened, but before he could accuse her of considering it, he heard her laugh, soft and delighted where it filled the cramped cabin.

 _“Shanks,”_ Makino said then, an unbearable softness in the speaking. _“I love you.”_

Then, _“Oh—I have to go,”_ she said. A pause followed, and then, _“Just come home safe, okay?”_

There it was again, the impulse to tell her that it wasn’t his own safety he was worried about, but he knew she was already aware, and that telling her would just be redundant. And he didn’t doubt that she was worried; he could tell just from the slight quaver to her voice. Even if her last birth hadn’t brought any complications, another baby so close at its heels…

And so, “Yeah,” he said simply, because it was all he could do. If anything happened, it did; being home or away wouldn’t make a difference, at least not where her pregnancy was concerned.

And  _home_ , he thought, and looked out the porthole, at the sea beyond. He felt the ship swaying; heard the soft creak of the planks and the sound of footsteps on the deck outside.

Sea under his feet for the first time in years, and the only thing he could think about was solid land, and that his footing had never felt as unsteady as it did now.

 

—

 

_“Another one?”_

The shrill note of disbelief in her voice made Makino flush. “It wasn’t like we planned it!”

A snort drifted over the line, before Dadan said, _“I know Red-Hair’s libido didn’t get the memo that he’s passed forty. You don’t have to plan when you’re at it as much as you two.”_

“Dadan!” She stole a glance over her shoulder, but there was no one in her house to overhear. Only Emmy, cooing in her basket, but Makino still lowered her voice. “We didn’t think it would happen so soon. Or at all. Since—since it took so long, last time.”

Dadan fell quiet at that. Then, _“Everything okay with you?”_

Makino fiddled with the mouthpiece. “I’m a little worried,” she admitted, forcing her fingers to still in her lap. She touched them to her stomach, seeking the barely-there bump she still wasn’t convinced wasn’t just her imagination, before they fisted in her blouse.

 _“You tell Red-Hair that?”_ Dadan asked.

“No,” she said. “But there’s no reason for me to be, really. It’s just...I don’t know. Him being away. I guess I got so used to him being here.”

The Den Den Mushi let slip a grunt of understanding. _“So how long will Red-Hair be at this summit?”_

Makino thought about what Shanks had told her. The map he’d shown her, pointing out the coordinates he’d been given. “A few weeks,” she said. “Maybe more. Luffy wanted him there.”

_“That all? You’ve waited for him to come back longer than that plenty a’ times.”_

“I know,” she said, shaking fingers pressed flat over her stomach to keep them still. A few days since Doc had confirmed her suspicions, but she was still having a hard time accepting them herself.

She glanced at the little basket, and her daughter snug in her blankets. “I’ll just have bide my time again.”

 _“You did marry a pirate,”_ Dadan told her, but not unkindly. Then with a snort, _“And he is still that, even if he tries to pull off that apron. You’ll always be a pirate’s wife.”_

“Yeah,” Makino said. Then, frowning, “You’re right. I am that.”

Raising her eyes, she considered their living room, empty but for her and Emmy, and Dadan’s voice. She looked at the bookcase that took up a whole wall, and the open windows; the trees beyond, and the sunlight sifting through the branches, heavy with flowers in their last bloom. The birdsong sitting under the simmering buzz of the late-summer heat, from the nests tucked under the eaves.

Quiet. Her life didn’t know how to be _quiet_.

And she no longer had it in herself, Makino discovered, to wait.

“Dadan,” she said, holding the mouthpiece in the cup of her palm, the other in her lap; her hands as steady as the heart in her chest.

“Could you come over for another visit?”

 

—

 

She walked into the bar later, the bell jingling merrily, but it didn’t stir the sleeping baby wrapped in the sling around her chest. The serving girl who was managing the late shift gave her a wave, before breezing by with a tray.

“Hey, Ma-chan,” Yasopp called from the table he was playing cards with Lucky. Ace was observing, enraptured, but glanced up at her arrival, as Yasopp added, “You’re here late. Thought you had the night off.”

A rousing chorus of welcome greeted her, as she considered her second home. Not much different from Party’s, after her small tweaks and adjustments. Dark wooden floorboards and laden shelves, and rows of glasses and bottles polished to gleaming, catching the light of the sun sinking into the sea beyond the window overlooking the port.

The serving girl slipped past her with a stool, climbing onto it to light the kerosene lamp, to ward off the evening shadows gathering in the corners. Nearly every table was full, and the laughter rising up under the ceiling beams was a welcome thing, given the house she’d just left.

It wasn’t quiet, but it was still missing something.

Makino looked out at them all, taking in every familiar face, some of them watching her back curiously now. All of them her family. And what’s more—

Arms tucked around her daughter, she met Yasopp’s gaze, before letting her own sweep the rest of the room, and the pirates gathered. Most of them long retired, at least ostensibly, but pirates would be pirates, Makino knew, and with a smile that betrayed her intention even before her words did, she found it echoed on the faces looking back at her, as she declared,

“I need a ship and a willing crew.”

 

—

 

“Pregnant?”

Shanks considered the drink in front of him. He hadn’t touched it. “Yeah.”

Ben was looking at him, his own glass empty. “It’s soon.”

Shanks dragged a hand over his face. “Yeah.”

“What did Doc say?”

“Makino said he wasn’t worried.”

Ben raised a brow. “Did she say that to spare you?”

“She wasn’t lying. She knows even the Den Den Mushi can’t make a convincing attempt at covering up her expression.”

Ben made a sound of agreement. “What about her?”

Shanks was quiet, restless fingers worrying the tumbler. He thought about their conversation, and that tightness in her voice. She _was_ worried. Even her laughter hadn’t changed that.

“She will be fine,” Ben told him then, the words remembering another day, and different worries, but the reason for them the same. “She always is,” he added, and Shanks tightened his grip around the glass. “And you’ve been through this already.”

“Yeah, and we’ve already lost three!”

The outburst took Shanks by surprise, but Ben didn’t even flinch, only observed him calmly, as though he’d expected something of the sort.

The sigh he let go took effort, and Shanks loosened the clench of his fingers from around the glass. He felt suddenly tired.

Ben said nothing, but then he didn’t need to. Because Ben knew about their losses. The others knew about one, the one they’d lost at six months, and they might have suspected there’d been more, but beside Doc, Ben was the only one who knew; who’d kept their son distracted, the days Makino hadn’t had the strength to get out of bed, and who’d sat with Shanks into the night, until he’d drunk himself beyond feeling.

Shanks sighed. It came a little easier, this time. He didn’t have the strength to be angry, even at himself. “If something happens—”

“Then you’ll deal with it,” Ben told him. “It’s that simple. Always has been.”

“That’s not _simple_.”

“Shanks,” Ben said. “You’re not a stranger to death.”

He pushed his fingers into his hair, gripping until it hurt. He’d never in his life wanted a hangover so badly, if only for the distraction. “This is different,” he said. “This isn’t a war. This is—”

“Life,” Ben said. “It’s not any more merciful. And you know better than to expect it to be.” But when Shanks looked at him, the hard press of Ben’s features relented a bit. “But that doesn’t mean you should always expect the worst.”

Shanks didn’t answer, but Ben didn’t wait for one. “She’ll be fine,” he said, the words offered again, not as a lifeline but as a promise. Like it always had been between them, wisdom and advice offered whenever he faltered. Their roles might have changed, but the basis of their friendship hadn’t.

“Hey,” Ben said then, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Congratulations.”

Despite the thoughts keeping him company, Shanks found his own, a small note of marvel dredged up from the mire of his anxieties. His laughter took his breath with it. “Another kid.”

“I should get my ledgers,” Ben said. “Place my bets early, now that I have the chance.”

Surprised, Shanks looked at him, hearing the words for what they were. Not an empty assurance, but a show of faith.

It was what he needed.

Lifting his glass, he knocked it back, before setting it down for a refill. The warmth of the drink filled his chest, and eased some of the tightly-knit tension from his shoulders. A pale substitute; he thought he would have rather had her laughter.

“She called to tell you in advance this time,” Ben said then, refilling their glasses. “Maybe she didn’t think your heart could take another surprise reveal. It’s been a few years since the last one.”

“ _Har_. You know, this ‘you’re getting old’ joke is getting old,” Shanks said. But he felt a little better, joking about it. Like the drink, the banter helped ease some of his worries. It was something familiar; a piece of a world that didn’t really feel like his anymore, invoking similar evenings, sitting in the galley of his ship, the future uncertain but his crew a constant.

“Not as old as you,” Ben countered, lifting his tumbler.

Shanks could only smile, but didn’t disagree, as he tilted his own against it, and tossed it back.

 

—

 

The voyage didn’t take as long as she’d thought it would. A small mercy, Makino conceded, given that she’d spent most of it being violently sick.

“ _Land ho!_ ”

The call reached her through the cabin door, and she smothered a groan into the pillow; she couldn’t decide if it was in relief or the opposite. The thought of solid land under her feet again tempted the first; the fact that she had to get off the bunk made her want to say it was the second.

The old mattress dipped under her weight, the sheets softened from wear. They didn’t smell like Shanks, but the cabin itself invoked him, in little, comforting details; the ratty old paperback she’d found tucked under the mattress, and the empty bottle she’d rooted out from the chest against the wall, sitting on the desk now, staring back at her.

“I can’t believe you actually did this,” she said to the bottle, throwing back her reflection, a distorted image of her face. But even as she spoke the words, she felt it; that stirring within her that seemed to have uprooted some long-buried feeling, making it hard to keep from smiling.

She caught the sound of footsteps passing by on the deck outside, laughter rising to chase the rhythm, before a cheerful rap against the door followed, a reminder rather than an announcement to enter.

A fleeting glance at her reflection in the old bottle, before she rose up from the bunk. “A pirate’s life for a pirate’s wife,” Makino murmured, reaching out to adjust her kerchief.

Setting her feet on the boards, she took a moment to gather herself, breathing through her nose as she forced her body to follow the sway of the ship. She’d been fighting against it since she’d stepped on board, but it was hard to let the vessel lead her, when even the smallest movement had her feeling like bending over the railing. Years since she’d last been at sea, but she wasn’t handling it with any more grace than she had the first time.

But this was a different voyage, a need and vessel claimed by her own choice, and with that thought in mind, she made for the cabin door, chin lifted as she shoved her nausea back down and stepped outside.

The sharp kiss of the sea air was a welcome respite, cool and wet against her cheeks, and she breathed it in greedily, salt on her tongue and in her nose, and the breeze teasing tendrils of her hair loose from its confines.

She found Yasopp and Lucky by the railing, the former holding Emmy, pointing at a seagull perched on the rigging above. They glanced up at her approach, Yasopp’s grin stretching, sharp gaze doing a single sweep across her. Makino hoped the grin was for how she looked, not because there was vomit on her shirt.

A quick, downwards glance saw it wasn’t the last, and she smoothed her hands over her stomach, fingers plucking nervously at the soft fabric of her cloak.

Joining them by the railing, Yasopp held the baby out. Makino wrapped her arms around her, smiling a kiss against her brow.

“We’re getting close,” Yasopp said, nodding to the water, and Makino looked up to follow his gaze.

They were drawing near an island, a slab of jagged grey rock jutting out of the sea. At first glance it didn’t look like much, but further inspection showed a twisting path spiralling upwards from the shore, inching along the cliff’s edge towards a large structure in white stone, perched at the very top.

Theirs wasn’t the only ship in the water, and along the shore Makino spotted at least a hundred more, anchored to the wharf, their sails rolled up but their jolly rogers visible, a hundred black flags spread against the sky, an ever-bending stretch of blue burnished with gold as the sun slowly set.

“Do you think we’re late?” she asked, peering up at the cliff. She could spot people moving along the path, like a line of ants toeing precariously along the edge of a massive rock.

“I think we're right on time. Seems to be getting underway,” Yasopp said, eyes following the same path.

“Did you call Usopp?”

His grin told her he hadn’t. “Thought I’d surprise him,” he said. His next glance was knowing; as was the wink he gave her. “Seems to be the night for it.”

Makino only smiled, and tucked her nose against the baby’s head.

They drew up to the wharf just as the sun touched the horizon, the crew setting about anchoring the ship without preamble. Makino observed them moving, an ease to their responses that spoke of muscle memory and something even more innate; a knowledge no number of land-bound years could take away.

Someone threw out the first line of a familiar shanty, to a laughing response from across the deck, before more joined in, including a voice hailing them from a nearby ship. Makino felt the rhythm in her whole body, drumming through the planks under her feet and up her legs, into her chest. The responding hum sat on her tongue before she was even aware she was doing it.

And standing there as they moved around her, shifting like a current around a single, sturdy rock, as though she’d always been among them, she didn’t have a thought to spare her nausea as the gangway was dropped, a curl of anticipation in her stomach spurring her forward instead, steps steadier on the creaking boards than they ever had been.

An encumbered-looking pirate was standing at the wharf, a clipboard in hand. He didn’t glance up as they disembarked, squinting down at what appeared to be a list several pages long.

“Ship?” he asked then, flicking his eyes up briefly, before doing a double-take. His brows furrowed a bit at the sight of it, the dragon figurehead throwing a long shadow over the stonework docks, something like recognition stirring on his face.

“Red Force,” Makino said, and watched as his eyes dragged back to her. He seemed to take a moment just to look at her; the baby in her arms, and the crew at her back.

Then, “Her Captain?” he asked, the tip of his quill poised over the paper.

Catching several grins from out of the corner of her eye, Makino smiled. In her arms, Emmy made a small, curious sound.

“That would be me.”

 

—

 

The gathering dark had leeched the sun’s warmth out of the whitewashed stone, a long-awaited respite from the midday heat offered at last, along with the lengthening shadows creeping down the narrow corridors winding through the towering structure that had been appropriated for the occasion.

Shanks had no idea how Luffy had gotten his hands on a _fortress_ , or who had owned it previously, but he knew better than to ask.

“This looks more like a party than an assembly,” he told Ben, observing the people gathered. The ships had been coming in all week, and idled now along the wharf hugging the water’s edge, far above which sat the white-stone stronghold, wedged into a steep cliff. Several hundred vessels and their crews, all having arrived for the summit. “Although it figures, given who issued the invitation.”

They were standing towards the far end of a large, square chamber, the high, vaulting ceilings invoking the ghosts of lavish feasts, heavy wooden beams wedged together to carry the weight of the structure, and slits of honeycombed glass opening up to the darkening sky, bruising purple as the light bled out of the day. The room was well-lit, a hundred glowing lamps suspended from above casting a sheen of gold across glass and stonework, giving the illusion that everything was gilded.

All in all, a fitting setting for a gathering of pirates, the room full of hearts hungry for treasure, but they seemed to have settled for plundering the refreshments. There was enough food to feed several fleets.

Again, not much of a surprise, given their host.

“It will be interesting to see what comes of this,” Ben said, sliding him a look. “Even if you are retired. The kid did appreciate the insight.”

“I don’t know how useful it was,” Shanks said, observing the pirates mingling, a colourful horde of different species and crews. He recognised some faces, but most were unfamiliar. And half his age. “This is a different world than ours was.”

Ben’s mouth quirked. Shanks watched as he lit himself a cigarette. “Maybe,” he said, gaze shifting across the room, ever-assessing. “But pirates will be pirates.”

Shanks’ agreement was a fleeting smile, and he followed Ben’s gaze, taking in the celebration with a curiously detached interest. A long life of piracy had seen many similar events, and he’d always had a ready heart for feasts of all kinds. If there was booze present, all the better. If there wasn’t, he was usually the one providing it.

But even with a party big enough to fill an entire stronghold and enough drink to put even his tolerance to the test, his thoughts kept fleeting back, to a warm hearth and his wife curled up against his side, a single bottle enough between them.

“Thinking about Makino?”

His smile was quick to chase the question, spoken in a way that told Shanks Ben already knew the answer. “I’m that obvious, huh?” He sighed, watching as someone made an elaborate toast, a rousing thunder of laughter following it. “It’s just weird, her not being here. It was easier when we only saw each other a few weeks at a time.”

Ben took a long drag of his cigarette. “It’s the way of things.”

“Yeah?” Shanks asked. “What about you? Worried about your tobacco crop?”

“There was cold front coming,” Ben deadpanned, refusing to indulge his teasing. “And I have orders to meet.”

“Listen to you. And you give me grief for the barkeep thing.”

“I don’t wear an apron,” Ben pointed out.

“No, you don’t wear a _shirt_. And don’t tell me you’re not aware it’s the reason half the people on our island stop by your house every morning.”

“I’m just now hearing about this,” Ben said, smiling around his cigarette.

Shanks shook his head. “And I’m the indecent one,” he muttered. His eyes scanned the room again, before he stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said, frowning. “Is that Yasopp?”

Ben followed the direction of his gaze, brows drawing together. “Maybe he decided to come after all. It’s been a while since he saw his kid.”

Shanks was still frowning. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But it’s a little weird that he didn’t call ahead.”

Ben said nothing to that, but his silence held agreement, and Shanks tried not to let himself question the wisdom behind Yasopp’s decision to come.

It wasn’t that he was worried anything was going to happen while he was gone, but there’d been a guarantee in the knowledge that most of his crew was where his family was. It wasn’t a secret that he’d settled down; the thought that someone might take advantage of him leaving had crossed his mind, both before and after setting sail. Like it had done more than once, in the years he’d still been an active pirate.

But Blackbeard was an old memory, dulled like the scar on his chest. And there was still Lucky and the others. There was no reason for him to add more concerns to the ones he already had, what with Makino pregnant.

“There’s Lucky,” Ben said then, and Shanks’ head swivelled around. And there was no mistaking the familiar bulk, or the fact that he’d stationed himself next to one of the tables laden with food.

“What the hell,” Shanks muttered. But before either of them could walk over to ask the man himself, someone stepped up behind them, and Shanks turned, taking in the familiar mop of blond hair, and the lopsided smirk.

“Red-Hair,” Marco said, inclining his head in a greeting. “Been a few years.”

“Marco,” Shanks laughed. He stole a fleeting glance across the room, but Lucky had moved somewhere else. If it hadn’t been for Ben pointing him out, he might have thought he’d imagined it.

He looked back at the pirate in front of him, his hands in his pockets, and more at ease than when Shanks had seen him last. “I haven’t seen you since the war,” he said. “How’s your crew?”

The smirk crooked further, visibly amused. “Drinking,” Marco said. “I’m starting to wonder if that wasn’t why he called us here.”

Grinning, Shanks was inclined to agree. “Been here long?”

“Just came in yesterday. You?”

“A week ago,” Shanks said, nodding to Ben. “Luffy wanted some advice. I thought it was for the open bar, but apparently it’s strategy and coordinating this whole event. Not really what I signed up for. I retired, you know?”

Marco smiled. “I heard you’re a barkeep now,” he said. “How’s that treating you?”

Shanks’ grin widened. “I’m always happy to be close to good booze. And my family, of course.”

“Yeah,” Marco said. “I just ran into your missus over by the refreshments.”

Ben lowered his cigarette, and Shanks blinked. “What?”

“Your missus,” Marco repeated. “Makino.”

Shanks’ mouth worked. “My—”

Marco nodded across the room. “Cute kid, by the way. That’s your youngest, yeah? Seems to have stolen the whole show. Not that His Majesty is complaining. He’s the one who’s been showing her off.”

Shanks followed the line of his gaze, still having trouble accepting what he was even saying, and there was a part of him that thought Marco had to be mistaken; that it couldn’t be her— that she couldn’t be _here_.

But then he found her — sought her out in a single breath where she stood among a group of pirates, the tiny shape of her emphasised by the crowd around her, but holding court at its heart like she did their busy bar, her presence at once unassuming and quietly compelling. In a loose shirt and breeches, her small shoulders at ease under a short cloak, a lovely thing he’d brought her years ago on a whim, supple folds of sea-green velvet threaded with silver at the collar, enclosed around her neck with silver clasps. Her thick braid coiled in a bun at her nape, a blood-red kerchief wrapped like a bandanna around her head, holding her hair back from her face. She looked like _—_

“A pirate,” Shanks said, dumbstruck.

She met his eyes then, as though she’d felt him looking, and her smile tilted her eyes at the corners, the earth after rain, and full of the pleasure that delighted in catching him off guard.

“I’ll be damned,” Ben said. “She finally outdid herself.” He threw Shanks a look. “Do you need to sit down?”

“Am I not sitting down?”

Ben was grinning. “That explains the others,” he said, casting another glance around the room, seeking. “Did she bring them all?”

Shanks would have answered if he’d had his mind with him, or if he could have found his voice, but both eluded his grasp, watching Makino pick her way across the room towards them, the soft soles of her boots leaving no sound on the stone. She stood out from the crowd, a small, gentle shadow of dark hair and ivory skin, and eyes that swallowed up the light.

And coming to a stop before them, “Hey,” she said, casually — as though there was nothing amiss with her presence here, in a fortress full of pirates.

His grin was still that stupid, wholly disbelieving thing, but, “Hey,” Shanks laughed, the script old and familiar, even as it felt like he was reciting it for the very first time.

He thought he might have kissed her senseless, if he’d had any of his own senses with him.

Her pleased smile told him he was being rather obvious about the fact. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, eyes gleaming. “The traffic getting here was terrible.”

His mouth worked, but he had nothing to offer but that half-gaping, gobsmacked expression.

As though she’d heard the question anyway, “I figured that since we make such a good team at the tavern, I would be remiss to leave you to do this alone,” Makino said, smiling.

Shanks was still scrambling to catch up. It was a feat deciding what to even _say,_ all of his usual, quick-found wit failing him, along with his voice.

“I take it you answer to ‘Captain’ now?” Ben asked in his stead, warm amusement rolling off the words, and Makino’s smile brightened.

“Not only that,” she said. From across the room, Yasopp caught her eye, and raised his glass with a shout of ‘Bosslady!’ that had her raising her hand in a salute, and prompting an echoing chorus from the rest of his crew, who Shanks could now see intermingled with the other pirates.

“You usurped me,” he said, amazed.

Makino blinked, brows quirking innocently. “Aren’t you retired?”

Delighted grin bordering on ridiculous, Shanks looked to Ben. “She usurped me.”

“We did warn you,” Ben told him. “Repeatedly.” But his attempted dryness was ruined by the fact that he couldn’t stifle his own stupid grin.

Shanks thought he should have managed a comeback to that, but the sight of her had him forgetting what Ben had even said. He was vaguely aware that he was still gaping.

Ben excused himself then, but when he passed her — “Captain,” he told Makino, and their shared grin told Shanks this was far from the end of it. None of them would ever let him forget this.

Somehow, he found himself quite without shits to give about the fact.

Inclining her head in a show of observing his reaction, Makino’s smile managed to somehow be both sweetly demure and utterly glib. Shanks just shook his head, although he didn’t rightly know just what he was refuting.

He reached up to cup her cheek, as though needing to touch her to convince himself that he hadn’t just conjured her from thin air (he didn’t know what was in the punch, but he doubted it was rum; and he wouldn’t have put it past himself — not to have drunk too much, or to have brought her into being like this, in full pirate regalia, an old fantasy unearthed from a younger man’s memory).

But she was solid under his fingers, her skin warm and smooth, and he felt her smile when it lifted her cheeks, all the way to her eyes, to gather in the gentle lines at their corners.

“I brought your ship,” Makino said then.

His laugh sounded breathless. “You brought more than that, from the looks of things.”

Makino looked over her shoulder, and Shanks followed, finding Luffy at the centre of the crowd.

Spotting them, “Shanks!” he called loudly, waving. He had Emmy on his arm, and Shanks saw she was awake, small hands fisted in Luffy’s shirt.

Then he was making his way over, grin as bright as the lights overhead, which had claimed the baby’s gaze, her mother’s eyes wide and enraptured as she craned her neck to look at them.

Shanks took them both in. And it was just two weeks since he’d last seen her, but the sight still left him short of breath, like someone had jabbed him sharply between the ribs.

“Why am I always finding my kids with you?” he asked, as Luffy strode up to where they were standing, the crowd parting to let him pass. “I don’t know if I like this trend. One of these days you’ll be calling me with a stowaway on your ship, and refuse to give them back.”

Luffy only grinned, and didn’t seem to find the insinuation at all unjustified. He had his arm wrapped around the baby twice, as though for good measure. Shanks noticed she didn’t seem to mind the fact, still distracted by the hanging lights.

He reached out to touch one small foot, claiming her attention. “You’ve flown a long way, little swallow,” Shanks told her, rubbing his thumb along the arch of her foot. It got him a smile, wide and toothless, and that gurgly little giggle that was his favourite.

He brushed his fingers over the hem of her dress; noticed the little fish and the whorls of lace and seed pearls. “All dressed up for the occasion, too,” he said.

He looked at Makino, who met his eyes. The significance wasn’t lost, but it passed between them in silence, and what he said instead was, “Between the two of you, I feel like I should have made a bigger effort.”

Her smile was enduring. She very pointedly didn’t look at his pants. “Would you really?”

Shanks grinned. “Probably not.” He raised his brows suggestively. “I’m at my best without clothes, and you know it.”

Luffy made a grimace at that. “Ew,” he told the baby, before sticking his tongue out at Shanks. “I’m taking her to where there’s food. You can be gross over here.”

Before Shanks could get in another word, he’d whisked her away, but she went along for the ride, seeming to endure the attention with staggering grace, despite the gathering crowd of curious onlookers taking shape around the Pirate King, who’d made straight for the food.

“Your daughter,” Makino mused. “A natural for the spotlight.”

Shanks watched the crowd; sought the wide-eyed little face at its heart now. “Oh, I don’t know if it’s me she gets that from,” he said, looking back at Makino. “I’m not the only one with a penchant for dramatic entrances.”

At her raised brow, he gestured to the room. “You commandeered my crew _and_ you decided to make an appearance at the biggest outlawed event since the war. Without telling me.” He shook his head, marvelling. “This you give no warning.”

He remembered the moment he said it, the reminder as stark as the realisation that followed, and his gaze dropped to her stomach, but there was no visible indication of her condition.

He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse. They were among allies — well, _Luffy_ ’s allies, but they were still pirates, and opportunism had little patience for loyalty. And even if Shanks had no real authority on this sea anymore, his name still carried weight, and Luffy wasn’t exactly making a secret of their connection, brandishing their daughter like a treasure.

And of course, there was the sea herself. He tried not to think about the long voyage, and all the things that could have gone wrong.

“I decided not to be afraid,” Makino said then, and Shanks lifted his eyes from her stomach to meet hers. “We were so careful, all those times, but it didn’t change anything. And I didn’t want to spend nine months sitting on my hands, fearing the worst.”

Shanks looked at her, firm in her quiet resolve. And she was right; they’d done everything they could to be safe during all her pregnancies, and in the end it hadn’t made a difference. Not for the three that had preceded their daughter, anyway.

Makino smiled then. “I have a good feeling,” she said, as though in answer to his thoughts. “And I brought Doc with me, just in case.”

The assurance was meant to ease his mind, he knew, but it was the look on her face that did it; that helped anchor his fleeting certainty, the one that had felt out of his reach ever since she’d called with the news.

Shanks held her eyes, his own smile wry. “Not just Doc.”

The far too innocent look he got in return wasn’t even remotely convincing. “I only asked for those who were willing,” Makino said.

“I’m sure you did. I’m also pretty sure they’d all sail to the ends of the ocean if you batted your eyes.”

They’d moved closer, the rest of the crowd parting to move around them. Shanks didn’t let it faze him. He had few thoughts left to spare the festivities, or why they were even there, with her standing so close. And they’d only been apart two weeks, but enough things had happened in the in-between that seeing her again, and before he’d counted on it, was almost too much.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked her. His hand hovered awkwardly at her hip, wanting to touch her, to see if he could feel a difference and if it would help solidify the news somehow, but something held him back, and he let it fall to his side.

Makino’s smile eased into understanding. “Everyone is fine,” she said. She swept her hand over her stomach once, a familiar ease in the gesture. There was a teasing light in her eyes when she added, wryly, “And I’ve been throwing up so much from the morning sickness, the seasickness barely even fazed me.”

He laughed, a soft and helpless sound. “That’s my girl.”

Lifting his hand, he curved his fingers around the back of her neck, tangling in the twist of her braid, a few loose strands escaping it. It felt coarser than usual. From wind and sea spray, he realised, with an awe that filled his chest whole.

She’d sailed the New World before, when Rayleigh had brought her from Fuschia, but that had been out of necessity. This —his ship, his crew, _their daughter_ —was choice, wholly wilful, and just a little bit reckless. The kind of choice a pirate would make, for no other reason than because she could.

“I love you,” he told her then, seriously. “You wilful little thing. You’ll give me a full head of grey hair one of these days pulling stunts like this.”

Her eyes were laughing, but the smile that softened her mouth looked suddenly unsure. “Would you rather I hadn’t come?”

“No,” Shanks said, without even a pause for breath. He brushed his thumb along her cheek; a tender arc. “I’ll take the grey hair.”

He flashed her a grin, and saw how it chased the lingering doubt from her features, even before he added, “And now that you’re here, this just became a real party.”

Her laugh fell, a soft sigh over his fingers. “That’s quite the compliment, coming from you,” Makino said.

She glanced over to where Emmy was being passed around, Luffy hovering with a grin that had stretched so wide it was visible from across the full length of the chamber. “What did he call this summit for again?” she asked.

Shanks shook his head. “I forget, but now it’s apparently to show off his goddaughter.”

The baby changed hands again, and then Luffy was bounding across the room, shouting for someone to come see. Like her brother before her, she seemed curiously accepting of his attentions, and those of the pirates who’d gathered around to watch the spectacle.

“Ace?” Shanks asked then, dragging his eyes away. “I’m going to assume you didn’t stow him away on the ship somewhere.”

Her smile made him wonder if that was actually the case, but, “Only one stowaway,” Makino said, patting her stomach. At his startled grin, she said, “Dadan came over. She’s watching him. I thought about bringing him, but I figured it might be best if he stayed. I didn’t know what to expect from, well, _this_.” She gestured to the room. “And I was already bringing Emmy.”

She looked over at their daughter again, still in Luffy’s arms. He wasn’t passing her around now, seeming content to carry her, still a little unconventionally, but with surprising care for a man who wasn’t exactly known for it.

“I couldn’t leave her,” Makino said. “She’s a little too young yet to be left with someone else. But I thought it would be okay. It’s not like she can run off.”

“No,” Shanks agreed, amused. “But I wouldn’t put it past the one holding her.” Shaking his head, the sigh that left him sounded suddenly old. “This is the second of our children who’s set out to sea before they’re a year old,” he told her. “And this time it’s our baby girl. I don’t know what I feel about this.”

“Hmm. Well, she’s been exemplary so far,” Makino said.

“Yeah?”

She met his eyes. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from the daughter of a former Emperor.”

“Former,” Shanks muttered, feigning affront. “I hope you know this continuous and belligerent use of the past tense is making me feel obsolete.” He looked at Luffy again, loudly delighted by the baby, and her small, bubbling laugh. “But on that note, His Majesty better be careful, or he’ll be the one who finds himself without a throne next. Given her mother, I wouldn't put it past her."

His brows furrowed. "Look at them fawning." Then, "I should go over there.”

Her laughter stopped him before her hand on his arm. “Let him have his fun. It’s his first time seeing her. And he is her godfather.”

“That’s my daughter he’s passing around like a loaf of bread.”

“If that was all she was, he’d have eaten her by now,” Makino said, unhelpfully. At his unamused look, she only smiled. “Shanks. He’s being very careful with her.”

“And the others?”

“The one with the face tattoos is making silly faces at her. I think we’re good.”

His dubious look held on for another few seconds, but her persisting smile tempted it into yielding, his surrender punctuated by a sigh that dissolved into a laugh quite despite himself.

He swept his gaze over her again, taking in the cloak and breeches. He tried to picture her on his ship, taking the helm with the same ease she took charge of things at the tavern.

The image came easily, and so quickly that he found he wasn’t at all surprised.

“Look at you,” Shanks said. “My pirate wife.”

Makino smiled an odd little smile at that. “Don’t you mean pirate’s wife?”

Shanks only looked at her. “No,” he said simply, and she ducked her head with a grin. He touched his fingers to the kerchief, the red bright against the dark colour of her hair.

“So,” he said then, lifting his brows, and watched as her eyes flicked back up to meet his. “Do you prefer ‘Captain’ or ‘Bosslady’ now? I feel my usual endearments fall a bit short of what I’m feeling about you in this getup.”

The pleased flush in her cheeks was immensely gratifying. “Hmm,” she mused, failing spectacularly at pretending to be unaffected. “The first does have a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah? Well I know I what I’ll be calling you later.”

He traced the curve of her cheek, before echoing the touch along the embroidered silver at her neck, rougher fingers brushing the soft fabric of her cloak; his callouses catching in the velvet. She was still watching him with that gently preening smile, and it took effort remembering they were in public, to not just pull her to him, as close as she'd get; to cage her small frame with his bigger one and forget everyone else.

“You know,” Shanks said then, voice slipping under the din. “This is a pretty big place. And Face Tattoo is providing a very good distraction.” His smile curved, an edge full of wicked promise. “Want to sneak off?”

Makino laughed, that throaty, straight-to-the-bottom-of-his-gut sound that he’d been craving for weeks. Even high-quality scotch couldn’t replicate that feeling. “The summit hasn’t even started yet.”

“Exactly. We have plenty of time. There’s bound to be some abandoned corner where we can get frisky.”

Her eyes curved, full of that familiar, teasing reluctance that always followed his suggestions of a quickie between shifts at the tavern. “Make a more compelling case, and I’ll consider it,” she said.

Shanks grinned, delighted. “Always so hard to win over.” He stole a fleeting glance across the crowded room. “But if you need more incentive, Yasopp is giving us a thumbs up,” he told her, lifting his own hand in a vulgar gesture. “You should make him walk the plank for that. You have the authority to do that now.”

At her barely-suppressed smile, he winked. “Or you could make me walk the plank. I don’t even know what I mean by that, but with the way you look right now, I don’t really care. I’m up for anything if you keep that cloak on.”

Her smile broke through her pitiful attempt at schooling her expression, and he was grinning so badly he doubted he’d ever in his life been quite so obvious.

They were standing so close they were almost embracing, but even if he ached with it, he didn’t reach down to kiss her, feeling the weight of the crowd around them, and knowing that for all her hard-earned ease in making a space for herself in it, there were some things she preferred to keep private. Or as private as she could, being married to him. But their crew and hometown was one thing; a room full of mostly strangers was another.

Reaching up, he settled his hand over her stomach instead, no awkward hesitation holding him back this time. And they had two children already, but he still struggled wrapping his mind around the thought of another one, even with the solid truth in front of him now, her skin warm through her shirt where he’d placed his hand. Under his palm, large where it spanned her small waist, her stomach curved gently, the bump barely noticeable, but he felt the implication; another little life, intricately woven into theirs.

“So, did you miss it?” Makino asked him then, making him look up. He’d lost himself to his thoughts, and her smile told him she’d realised as much. “The seafaring life,” she elaborated.

Someone breezed by them, the first notes of a familiar shanty rising up with their laughter, compelling more to join. Drunk off ale and saltwater, they were singing like they were moving across a tilting deck, feet unsteady and swaying on the solid stone. Like a good lover, the sea left her marks, in weak knees buckling, and a deep-seated longing for more that could never be sated. He’d known that longing intimately once.

But his feet were steady, and the only salt he longed for was the taste of her skin, and her hair slipping through his fingers, softer than water. It was years since the sea had left him weak in the knees, but the slender hands tucked over his knuckles could unravel him with a few touches. And she knew it, from the way she looked at him now.

“No,” Shanks said, smiling, and when it sparked her own he lifted his hand to tuck some of her hair back into her kerchief, bottle-green greying at the roots, the veins of silver mirroring his, if not in sheer quantity. He touched the laugh-lines at the corners of her eyes, etched deep with self-satisfaction; the knowledge of the marks she’d left.

“That’s not what I’ve missed.”

 

—

 

They slipped away, taking advantage of a sudden surge in the festivities, the noise and laughter swelling like a wave to carry them off, to seek a shadowed alcove where the party hadn’t reached yet, laughing and stumbling, and no care to offer the fact that they were both about twenty years too old to be pulling shit like this.

He was touching her the second they’d rounded the first corner, no eyes present to observe their quiet withdrawal, only the roaring din of the pirates gathered just a single wall away.

“ _Shanks_ ,” Makino hissed, still laughing as she caught herself against him, “they’ll _hear_.”

“They won’t,” he murmured, before stealing her balance with another kiss, and she fisted her hands in his shirt to keep herself from falling. “They’re all drunk.”

“Are _you_?”

She felt his grin, before he deepened the kiss, rough fingers cradling her face, and she sank back on her heels with a sound that she felt when it shuddered out of her, a low, pleading hum.

“You’re mad,” she whispered, even as she dipped her hands under the collar of his shirt, a murmur of contentment following the warmth of his bare skin under her palms.

“Always have been, a little,” Shanks quipped, with more breath than laughter as he pulled her closer.

She felt the desperation in the fingers raking up her back, to the thick coil of her braid at her nape, teasing it loose to tumble down her back, the whole of her seeming to have begged his touch before even she did, the words barely out of her mouth before he’d drawn her into the shadows and kissed her so hard she forgot to protest that they were still within hearing distance of the crowd.

But like the cool stone against her back, the crowd was soon forgotten, as he hardened in her hand, the filthy suggestions murmured into the hollow of her throat stuttering with his breath, and when he came apart Makino suffocated her grin against his chest.

“I don’t think this is what Luffy intended this summit for,” she breathed with a laugh, as he kissed his own across her collar, the rabbit-fast leap of her pulse.

She felt his fingers do quick work of the laces on her breeches, unhindered by the unfamiliar garment, and seeming boyishly delighted by the novelty of it. “With this many people, I doubt we’re the only ones doing it,” Shanks told her, grinning. “Pirates are lewd, filthy creatures.”

“Speak for yourself,” Makino said, sighing at the warmth of his hand dipping under the waistline, to cup her hip.

“I was speaking for both of us, actually.”

The casual remark had a different kind of warmth unfurling in her chest than the one prompted by the touch of his fingers; some deep-rooted, almost reckless pleasure at his blatant enjoyment in naming her a pirate.

“Well if it’s a common trait, that makes it all the more likely someone will come by, if they’ve got the same idea,” she said, her breath hitching at the teasing sweep of his thumb, and the protest sounded half-hearted even to her own ears.

“Then they’ll soon realise they should take their chances elsewhere,” Shanks countered, the words little more than a rumble against her skin as he slid his hand under her shirt. He hadn’t touched her cloak, the delicate silver clasps at the collar left alone. “It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. What else did they intend these dark corners for, if not public obscenity?”

“And if it’s Luffy?”

He grinned, before she felt a decisive tug at the waistline of her breeches. “We spared him when he was six. If he makes the same mistake now, it’s his own fault.”

Kneeling before her, he kissed her hipbone, lingering a moment at the soft curve of her stomach, and Makino carded her fingers through his hair, her look softening at the small, deliberate pause.

But his hesitation lasted only a second, and, “ _Captain_ ,” he named her then, and with enough impish cheek that she laughed so hard she could barely stand up straight. But she accepted the title like she’d accepted everything her life with him had given her, shifting currents and quiet tides alike; the pirate’s life she’d been living without realising it, ever since the day he’d first offered it to her.

The party continued in their absence, not a hitch felt in the celebration as they conducted their own, private one.

The cloak stayed on, even as very little else did.

She had an image to maintain, after all.

 

—

 

Stepping back inside from a cigarette break, Ben found Yasopp holding the baby. She was tucked against his shoulder, fast asleep, one tiny hand curled around a fistful of his hair.

Taking them in, Ben arched a single brow. “Do I want to ask where her parents are?”

Yasopp grinned. “That depends. Have you recovered yet from the time you walked in on them?”

Ben’s look was dry. “I’d tell you, but I promised Captain never to speak of it.”

“That’s funny, given that Boss brings it up whenever he has the chance,” Yasopp pointed out.

“That’s not the captain I was referring to.”

Yasopp barked a laugh — then winced, but the baby didn’t stir. But given the fact that she’d fallen asleep in the middle of a still-ongoing party, Ben wasn’t surprised.

Yasopp’s next laugh was a softer thing, before his smile widened, and he looked at Ben. “We’re never letting him forget this, right?”

Ben only smiled. “Not in this life.”

 

—

 

They’d left apart but they returned together, Red Force climbing the waves with more grace than the ship he’d departed on, a near-effortless flight aided by the wind filling her sails. And just having the deck of his ship under his feet again made Shanks feel curiously nostalgic, even as there was something entirely new about this particular voyage.

He was watching the horizon when he sensed her approaching, her steps light across the planks, a deliberate care to her movements that had more to do with her persisting nausea, Shanks knew, than the baby in her arms.

“Land ho,” came her voice, the soft lilt like the sea spray against his face, a warm welcome. In the distance, their island sat in the water, just as they’d left it; wholly unassuming for all the significance it held.

Shanks turned to take in her approach, and was momentarily distracted by the sight of her, still in her shirt and breeches, but her hair loose and in tangles down her back. She had Emmy in her arms, her little head resting against her shoulder, chewing on her hair. The slight rocking of the ship didn’t seem to faze the baby, although Makino looked a touch paler than usual.

The red kerchief was missing, he noted, although it was probably for the best; the creative use they’d made of it had rendered him physically incapable of looking at it without grinning like an idiot. Subtlety had never been his strong suit, even without entirely filthy incentive.

“Captain on deck,” Shanks chirped, as Makino came to stand beside him.

The look she gave him was delightfully patient, despite the pleased tilt of her smile, no doubt at his public ogling. “Ben has been making me suffer for that all week, don’t tell me you’ve joined forces?”

His grin had no intention of leaving his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shanks said, innocently. “I’m just acting in accordance to standard regulations, by deferring to a higher rank.”

She rolled her eyes around a smile. “If I’d known you’d be this insufferable, I never would have usurped you.”

“No? You’re singing a different tune than you did last night. And the one before. And—”

“That kind of cheek will see you walk the plank, sailor,” she warned him. “And not in the fun way.”

“You clearly underestimate my ability to make a party out of any situation,” Shanks told her. “But now I’m interested in hearing just what you mean by 'fun way'.”

“Don’t look at me,” Makino said. “I’m not the one constantly making terrible, piracy-related euphemisms.”

“It’s a gift,” Shanks retorted, smile impish, and caught her own when she tried to hide it.

He heard her draw in a breath then, fingers making soothing circles on the baby’s back, although she looked to be the one needing it.

“How’s the nausea today?” he asked, when her eyes had slipped closed.

Makino pushed a breath past her lips. “A little better than yesterday, but not by a lot.”

His smile was sympathetic, but didn’t succeed in staying that way, delight shaping it into something else as he reached out to flatten his palm over her stomach. “And our stowaway?”

She didn’t seem as enamoured with the nickname as he was. Of course, she’d been throwing up all morning. “Behaving, although not as much as this one,” Makino said, giving the baby a bounce. Then, smiling eyes finding his, a quiet retaliation in them, “How’s the hangover? You had quite a bit to drink last night.”

That was an understatement, and she knew it, but then she’d been the one pouring the shots.

 _You’re drinking for two now,_ she’d laughed, their daughter sleeping and the galley of his ship full of noise for the first time in years. Her eyes had shone in the low light, and she’d been sitting so close he’d felt every part of her. _Or are you not up to the challenge?_

“It’s one to remember,” Shanks admitted, feeling the persistent pounding behind his brow. “But it was totally worth it,” he added, remembering the red kerchief. He was always at his most creative when absolutely shitfaced. “You’re wholly to blame for it, by the way.”

“Oh it’s _my_ fault?”

He looked at her, smile adoring. “For making me forget that I’ll soon be closer to fifty than forty? Entirely.”

She laughed, but sounded pleased by the accusation, although it wasn’t much of a secret that she made him forget most of his years.

The hangover pressing against his skull seemed cheerfully determined to remind him of them.

He looked out over the water again, towards the island. It hadn’t taken them more than a few days to cross the sea back again, his ship swifter on the water than most.

The summit had concluded with minimum fuss, meaning only a handful of fights had broken out, half of which had been over servings of food, and the rest over a brief interlude where there’d been no alcohol. But Luffy had deemed it an overall success, even if it had very nearly prompted an international crisis — at least from without; the festivities themselves had proceeded with mostly cheer and goodwill.

“The amount of loyalty that kid’s racked up is a little ridiculous,” Shanks said after a lull, eyes on the water, and the island drawing ever nearer. “I’d say the Government can let out the breath it’s been holding, but I doubt it’ll be long before he pulls another stunt like this.”

“It’s good to see he has allies,” Makino agreed. She’d come to stand beside him by the railing. “Although they’re a— _colourful_ bunch.”

“See now, that’s the kind of diplomacy I could have used when I nearly got into that fistfight. I only have one fist, Makino. It was _not_ a good idea.”

She shot him a look. “I left you alone for two minutes. How did you manage before I even got there?”

Holding her gaze, Shanks swept his hand to the side, to where Ben stood smoking, at a careful distance from the baby. Makino rolled her eyes.

“And for the record,” Shanks said then, “I was there to get my daughter back. It’s not my fault Face Tattoo took offence.”

She sighed, looking down at the baby, busy sucking on her fingers. “I can’t wait until you’re old enough to bring suitors home.”

Shanks looked at her, aghast. “Why would you _say_ that? She’s six months old!”

“She won’t be forever is all I’m saying.”

The open betrayal on his face conveyed, he knew, by the smile she didn’t even bother trying to hold back.

“Don’t worry,” Makino said, rubbing her hand over that little back. “Given her extended family, I don’t think anyone would dare. Garp alone would make most people think twice.”

“That does make me feel a bit better.”

“Of course, Garp being there never stopped _you_ ,” she said, with a meaningful look.

Shanks just looked at her. “You’re cruel when you’re seasick.”

She laughed, the sound smoothing his ruffled feathers, and making it difficult to suppress his own. A mutter tucked under his breath, he touched his hand to their daughter’s back, curving his palm over it and prompting a soft little noise. Makino kissed the top of her head.

They were drawing closer to the island, enough to spot the houses by the port; the green copper roof of their tavern and the cobbled road marking the first leg of the winding path into the island beyond. It was years since he’d last seen this particular vista, from the deck of his ship.

And it was his ship, and his crew, and his _wife_ , all of his worlds having come together, and so seamlessly he still had trouble convincing himself he hadn’t imagined it all. But when he looked, Makino was still there, their daughter in her arms, and their unborn child safe beneath her heart.

Only one thing was missing, but shielding his eyes from the sun found a small shape hurtling down the road to the wharf, red hair bright enough to spot even from a considerable distance.

“So this is what it feels like,” Makino said from beside him, gaze having locked onto the same sight. “Having someone come running to welcome you home.” She inclined her head, her eyes finding his. “I can see why you like it so much.”

The smile he gave her belonged to a different time, but it was hers all the same. “Oh, my girl. I don’t think anyone has you beat on enthusiastic reunions.”

She squinted through the sunlight, seeking the shore, and, “Don’t speak too soon,” she said, laughing, but he found an old wistfulness in the words — one that remembered a time where it had been her on the docks, rocking back on her heels, eagerness barely kept in check by the sea spanning the distance to his ship.

It took a little longer for them to draw into port, but Ace hadn’t budged, although he was practically jumping in place as they stepped off the gangway.

He made for his mother first. Their daughter had changed hands, dozing in Shanks’ arm now, and Makino’s were free to wrap around the boy who all but threw himself into them.

“Did you meet the Pirate King?” he was asking, before he’d even pulled back to look at her, the words rushing out, like he’d been hoarding them for weeks.

“We did,” Makino said, her laughter soft as she pushed his hair out of his face. It still needed a cut.

“What did he say? Did he do something cool? Was his whole crew there? Were there a lot of pirates? Where was it? Was—”

“ _Breathe,_ kiddo,” Shanks laughed, and Ace heaved for air, but excitement had brightened his face to shining.

“He said he would come for a visit,” Makino told him, pinching his nose. “Just for you.”

That had him sucking in such a dramatic breath, Shanks was surprised he didn’t pass out on the spot. For a moment, he seemed beyond words.

“Come on,” Makino laughed, with a kiss to his cheek. “Let’s go to the bar, and I’ll tell you all about the summit.”

“Did you throw up a lot?”

“The whole trip.”

“Was it gross?”

She grinned. “ _So_ gross.”

Ace laughed, seeming delighted by the fact. Shanks shook his head at them both.

“Uncle Ben!” he called then, finding him stepping up to join them. Ben reached out to ruffle his hair. “I checked on your crop, like you asked me to.”

Ben smiled. “Good man.”

“There were some women asking about you,” Ace said then. “They wanted to know when you were coming home.”

Shanks’ grin widened. Ben studiously ignored it.

“Tobacco buyers, I take it?” Shanks asked, cheerfully. “Business must be booming.”

“Something is _booming_ alright, but it’s not his crops,” Yasopp declared, slapping Ben on the back with a grin. “Glad you kept your shirt on for this shindig, Ben, or we’d never have made it home. We’d have been beating them off with sticks just to get to the ship.”

Ace frowned, and looked to Makino. “Sticks?” he asked. His eyes brightened. “Did you fight?”

“There was no fighting,” she said, cutting Yasopp a warning look, but she only got a wider grin for her troubles.

Yasopp winked. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” he said to Ace, as he set off towards the bar, and the boy sprang to follow, already having moved on to a different question. Their voices drifted back, fading as they walked.

“Did you practice with the slingshot?” Yasopp asked.

“I did! And grams took me to shoot bottles behind the house. She taught me how to reload a shotgun. You have to be _really_ careful with the kickback...”

Shanks watched them go. “We need new babysitters.”

Makino laughed. She’d rested her hands on her stomach, and was looking up at the little town that was theirs, and the crew making for their bar. People had come out to greet them, gathering by the wharf to observe the homecoming.

And it _was_ a different island, and a different life, but it was the same look he gave her when she sought his eyes — the one that had found its home in her, long before they’d made one together.

Watching her, Shanks took a moment to consider what it would have been like, returning to find her welcoming him back, the way it had always been. He wondered if she would have come running, or if she would have let Ace take the lead.

He would have lamented the private reunion that usually followed, just the two of them, laughing and always-touching after weeks apart, but there was a promise of a different sort in the smile she gave him now; a long voyage behind them, and a shared need for some peace and quiet, and each other.

“What are you thinking?” Makino asked.

Shanks smiled, and when he made to walk she fell into step beside him. In the crook of his arm, their daughter slept, undisturbed. He felt the sea at his back, stretching forever, but none of that old, restless urge to seek the horizon. He didn’t look back.

“I’m thinking we should probably stock the fridge.”

 

—

 

The day began with their son crashing through the front door.

“Mom! Dad! _It’s the Pirate King’s ship!_ ”

“Damn that Luffy,” Shanks groaned into the pillow. The shape under his arm shifted, a softer noise of protest slipping into the quiet. “It’s too early.”

“I was up with your daughter two hours ago,” Makino murmured, giving him a tired push. “It’s your turn.”

“ _Your_ daughter, she says. It’s always ‘your daughter’ when she’s up in the middle of the night, never when she does anything adorable.”

“She was adorable,” Makino said, face still buried in the pillow. Running his hand over her hip tempted a contented hum, although it was soon followed by, “More than you’re being right now.”

Quickly coming into full wakefulness with the shape of her under his fingers, Shanks hid his smile against her skin, along with a suggestive murmur. "I can be adorable." And with a kiss to the juncture of her neck, "Unless you'd rather I be something else. In which case, I can be a lot of things."

He heard her laugh, and felt the way she shifted closer. "You're optimistic if you think we have time for that now," Makino said, even as she bared her throat to the kiss.

"I've always been optimistic. It's my one selling attribute."

"You say that about all your attributes."

He grinned, an open-mouthed kiss laved against her pulse, the too-quick leap of it giving her away, but, "He's your son," Makino said, the warning ruined by the faint note of tender lament that dragged loose of her. "He won't be sitting still until they get here. I doubt we have one minute, let alone five."

As though on cue— _“Dad!”_ the voice cut through the morning, shrill with excitement.

His next kiss was offered with a sigh of surrender, but, “He’s old enough to handle a few visitors, right? How much trouble can they be?”

“Shanks, he’s seven.”

The wordless groan earned him no sympathy from his wife, and it was with effort that he dragged himself from the warmth of their bed, and from hers, pressing a last kiss to the exposed curve of her stomach before pushing himself up and making for the door, grabbing his pants as he went.

“Dad! Come _on!”_

“Yes, yes,” he yawned, rubbing his hand across his eyes. “The Pirate King, I know. Very exciting.”

Pulling on a shirt, he’d made it to the front door by the time he heard voices drifting towards the house, and caught sight of the little group making their way down the garden path. Just beyond the swelling rise in the distance, a curl of mist softened the edges of the early hour, a pale touch of gold to the sweeping sky hinting at a brilliant morning. And like everything else in their corner of the world, the island's awakening was a quiet thing, ripe with a careless lethargy that made no demands of its residents.

Of course, that was of little concern to the man lifting his gaze to the house, the brim of his straw hat tipped back to reveal a smile that promised several things, Shanks saw, but _quiet_ wasn't one of them.

Ruffling his son's hair, “The sun isn't even up yet,” Shanks declared, leaning against the doorway, although he suspected that his smile ruined his attempted severity somewhat. “Have you no respect for the old and decrepit?”

“I told you it was too early,” Nami muttered, arms crossed over her chest. “We could have stayed on the ship for another hour at least.”

Usopp sighed, the sound the lament of the long-suffering. “It’s no use, Nami." And around a yawn, "You can’t change his mind once he’s decided on something.”

She made a noise of reluctant agreement. “Hey—where’s Zoro?”

“Still asleep on the ship.”

 _“What?_ I had to get up at three to adjust our course because _someone_ couldn’t handle waiting anymore, and that oaf is still _sleeping_?”

Luffy let loose a guffaw then, coming to a sudden stop. “More importantly—Shanks! What the hell happened to your _hair?”_

Shanks resisted the urge to run his fingers through it, knowing the silver streaks were visible even from several meters away. A good deal more than it had been a few months ago, when they’d seen each other last. “Laugh it up, Anchor. It’ll be your turn one day.”

And Luffy did laugh, head thrown back now in earnest, and Shanks took a moment to consider him. And it was eerily like seeing Roger, a little less meat on his bones, but the same grin, and the same larger-than-life presence that seemed to make the air expand, as though the world itself was trying its best to accommodate for him.

He felt Makino's approach before the touch to his shoulder, and Luffy's expression contorted in response, his earlier amusement giving way to genuine surprise. “Ma-chan! _Whoa—_ you’re _huge_!”

A knock to his head had him yelping, and Sanji considered his captain coolly. “That’s no way to address a pregnant lady, idiot.” Then, turning his gaze back to Makino, his whole demeanour changing, “Might I point out that you’re positively glowing, Makino-san?”

Having come to a stop in the doorway beside him, his wife looked decidedly more presentable than Shanks, who hadn’t even buttoned his shirt. “Ah, thank you, Sanji-kun.”

“She remembers my name~!”

“Hey, _hey,”_ Shanks said. “I haven’t had coffee yet and you’re ogling my wife on my own doorstep. Not cool. And you were pushing your luck last time you were here. I wasn’t kidding about the hand.”

“We can’t take him anywhere,” Usopp deadpanned.

“That statement holds true for most of you idiots,” Nami muttered, to which Luffy only laughed.

“Oh, what’s gotten into you?” Makino asked then, and Shanks looked down to find their son, having apparently decided to observe the much anticipated arrival from behind their legs. “A moment ago you couldn’t sit still, you were so excited.” She clucked her tongue, giving him a nudge. “Come on now, we raised you to be polite.” Then with a look at Shanks, dark eyes gleaming, "Or one of us did, anyway."

"Hey, now..."

Awe-inspired reluctance sat in every tightly coiled little muscle as their son got his first real look at the man whose face he hadn't seen since he was a baby, at least disregarding the wanted posters Makino kept pinned to the kitchen wall.

“H-hello," the word rushed out, the syllables stumbling across an over-eager tongue.

Luffy grinned, squatting down, elbows resting on his knees; the picture of ease, while Ace was so tense he looked ready to topple. “Ace, huh?” There was a rare softness to his voice. “You're a lot bigger than you were when I was last here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah," Luffy laughed. "You drooled a lot."

His mother's son in so many ways, that statement would have prompted a mortified blush coming from anyone else, but coming from the Pirate King himself, Shanks had the sneaking suspicion Ace could have been told he'd drooled on Luffy's shirt and he'd consider it an honour.

"You know," Luffy said then. "That’s a pretty cool name you’ve got.”

Toothy smile stretching as wide as his face would allow it, Ace nodded, seeming a bit more at ease now. “Right? It means I’m number one! At least that’s what uncle Lucky says. It’s a really good card when you’re playing poker, and he’s been teaching me—”

“Uncle Lucky has been doing _what_ now?” Shanks asked. “Jeez, you let them babysit without supervision…”

“—and uncle Ben told me there was a really great pirate once who was named Ace!”

Luffy’s smile widened. “Yeah, he was the best!”

A great gasp, and that earnest expression of his every feeling another of his mother’s legacies. “You knew him?”

“He was my big brother.”

_“Really?!”_

“He’s going to burst from excitement soon,” Shanks murmured, and Makino laughed.

Luffy lifted his eyes to Makino then. “You having another brother or sister?” he asked.

Ace blinked, then said with a contemplative hum, “Dad thinks it’s going to be a boy, but Mom says it’s another girl.” And with a nod, small and fiercely determined, “Mom is always right.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Shanks laughed, finding his wife’s smile far too demure. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

Luffy nodded, seeming to find nothing amiss with that statement. “But whatever it is, you’ll protect them, yeah? That’s a big brother’s job, you know.”

That little chest puffed up proudly. “I know!”

Luffy smiled then, as though having come to some conclusion, and Shanks was reminded of a battle, years ago now — a proud king, battered and bruised and newly crowned, and Roger’s legacy sitting proud in every line of his grinning face.

And then — “Here,” Luffy said, and without preamble, plucked the straw hat off his head to place it on Ace’s, the magnitude of the gesture only amplified by the ease with which he performed it, as though it hadn’t required so much as a second thought.

The thing was far too big for him, dipping into his brow, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that the action had driven all form of coherent thought from his head, Shanks would have had the mind to smile.

Little hands reached up to touch the brim, reverent fingers hovering around the edges as though afraid to come into direct contact with it. “W-wha—really?!”

Luffy only grinned, and with a glance at Shanks, “You’ll take care of it,” he said, the words terribly old things, Shanks found, but then Luffy added, “This hat’s seen a lot of adventures, so you better make sure you give it some new ones.”

Shanks doubted that smile could get any bigger as Ace spun around, small hands keeping the hat from falling into his eyes and his excitement so vivid he wondered if there wasn’t an old captain somewhere in the great beyond, laughing himself into a stupor. “Dad! Look!”

His throat seemed to have closed up, and it was suddenly difficult finding his voice. But when he did, “You sure about this, Luffy?” he asked.

The grin that met his question was the same that smiled back from all his wanted posters, and Shanks found it echoed on all the faces at Luffy’s back. “I’m always sure.”

Makino’s hand curled around his, fingers intertwining in a tight grip, and Shanks could only laugh. There were no words when he looked for them, not to show his gratitude or his trust, but he hoped they transferred anyway, in the smile that split his face now.

_The sea you call yours will be the one my kids sail one day, Anchor. I’m trusting you to keep it safe._

And it wasn’t the first time, and he doubted it would be the last, that Monkey D. Luffy’s actions rendered him completely speechless.

“You must be hungry,” Makino said then, addressing the rag-tag crew, half of which looked ready to fall asleep where they stood. “How about I make you all some breakfast?”

“Yessss! Breakfast! I’ve missed your breakfasts, Ma-chan!”

“I’ll assist the lady,” Zeff’s brat said, before stamping out his cigarette. “We should get supplies from the ship, considering how you eat, Luffy.”

“Oi, someone should get Zoro.”

“ _Tch_. Leave him. Damn marimo can find his way here later if he’s hungry.”

Nami gave a snort. “You realise who you’re talking about, right? I doubt even life-threatening hunger could inspire a sense of direction in that idiot.”

“I’ll shed a tear for him later. Oye, Franky—come help me carry shit.”

“Roger that! It’ll be a _super_ feast!”

“Sanji-kun?”

“Yes, Nami-swan~!”

“Don’t cuss in front of impressionable ears.”

“Of course, Nami-swan~!”

The sun climbed over the treetops, filling their valley with light as Luffy’s crew saw to the noise, more than there ever had been in years; enough, Shanks suspected, that it would keep their little town talking for months. Their son even longer.

“A gaggle of kids, huh?” he mused later, when their kitchen had filled up, the Straw-Hats taking up every available surface and their laughter seeing to the rest. And at the heart of the tumultuous crew sat a little boy, dark eyes huge and endlessly admiring, and with an oversized straw hat pulled down over his hair.

The baby on his arm gurgled her agreement, tiny hands fisted in the collar of his shirt above a scar long healed, and Shanks grinned, giving her a bounce and tucking a sloppy kiss against a round cheek, eliciting a giggle.

Beside him, Makino sat, hands resting on the curve of her stomach with the ease of three pregnancies, and when she met his eyes he wondered how he’d ever thought there was a world to desire beyond the one they’d made for themselves between their four walls, on their little island on the edge of nowhere.

She smiled then, reaching out to pinch the little foot dangling off his arm and sending their daughter shrieking with laughter, loud enough to prompt Luffy’s from across the room, and in the midst of it all, Shanks didn’t even have the mind to feel old as Makino laughed—

“Exactly like I’d imagined.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

we all need something watching over us / be it the falcons, the clouds or the crows

and then the sea swept in and left us all speechless

 

_speechless._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a whole world of stories left to tell about these two, but I hope you enjoyed this one!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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